One o’clock on the third of December

One · What happened

A memo with an hour in it

Military Times reported that the memo gives the date and the hour in one line, “Thursday, December 3rd, 2026, at 1 p.m. CT.” President Trump approved the order on 2 October, and the memo names the commandant of the Army’s disciplinary barracks as the execution officer. The Army has not used a firing squad since 1945, when it shot Private Eddie Slovik for desertion. Hasan is fifty-six and sits on death row in Kansas.

On 5 November 2009 he opened fire in a building on the post where soldiers were getting immunizations and medical clearance for deployment. Thirteen people died, one of them a pregnant soldier. Thirty-two more were wounded. A military jury sentenced him to death in August 2013. At the trial, Federal News Network recounted, he admitted he was the gunman and called no witness of his own while the Army called nearly ninety.

The Pentagon confirmed that the execution will be livestreamed and said more details would follow, Federal News Network reported. Al Jazeera quoted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as saying the execution should be public because “people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.” Hegseth’s remarks did not say who would attend in person. Army regulations call for at least two media outlets to serve as witnesses.

Federal News Network reported a dispute over the Army’s notice to Hasan. John Galligan represented Hasan in the past and is not his lawyer in the criminal case now. He said the commandant brought a chaplain and no attorney when Hasan was told of the approval on 5 October, and he called that a breach of Army regulations. An Army spokeswoman answered that “the civilian counsel was not reasonably available to be physically present for the notification on the 5th.” She said several attempts were made to reach his Trial Defense Service lawyers. Experts said Hasan could file a habeas petition in a civilian court and delay the date significantly.

No American execution has ever been televised, Al Jazeera reports. The last public one was a hanging in Kentucky in 1936. Deborah Denno, a Fordham law professor, said a livestream could make the process “much more transparent,” in Federal News Network’s account. The arguments over the notice and the broadcast belong to judges and to Congress. A reader in his kitchen has no vote in either one.

Two · What it is doing

What you would be going to the screen for

On 3 December a phone in a coat pocket or on a desk will be one tap from a live feed of a man facing a firing squad. Most news reaches a reader unasked, in the order the day happened to deliver it. This item came with a date and a start time, so the decision to be there can be made weeks ahead. A decision made that far ahead has weeks to be rehearsed.

Military Times notes that Hasan admitted at his court-martial that he was the gunman. The anger a reader feels at that fact has good reason behind it. If you wore that uniform, or only read about the pregnant soldier and felt your jaw set, the wish to see Hasan’s sentence carried out is a wish for justice. A second wish slips in behind the first, and it is to see his face when the squad fires. Nobody has to admit the second wish to anyone. A reader can go on calling it justice for a long time.

“Appalling disregard for human dignity” is how Amnesty International Australia described Hegseth’s remarks, Al Jazeera reported. A reader who agrees with that phrase has a pull of his own. He pictures a stranger with the feed open on a desk at one o’clock and feels clean by comparison. Contempt for people who have not chosen anything yet can run for fifty-four days on the announcement alone. The contempt feels like moral clarity to the man who has it, and what it pays him is the satisfaction of being right about strangers.

A third reader means to feel nothing and has a method for it. He will mute the story and call Texas a long way from his kitchen. The families of the thirteen and the soldiers who still serve on that post can read the same announcement he muted. All three readers are settling their feelings in October about a day nobody has seen, and a feeling settled that early arrives at the screen ahead of the reader.

Three · Where the ground is

The crowd that stood by, watching

“The people stood by, watching,” Luke writes of the crowd at the place called The Skull, “but the rulers scoffed at him” (Luke 23:35). After Jesus died, Luke says, “all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts” (Luke 23:48). The audience went home grieving. The comparison stops with the crowd, because Jesus was innocent.

Abraham stood before the Lord near the oaks of Mamre and pleaded for the city of Sodom, where his nephew Lot lived. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” he asked (Genesis 18:25). The Lord answered that he would spare the city for the sake of ten righteous people, and Abraham, who had started at fifty, did not ask again. The Army and the courts have their part in what happens on 3 December. A reader at his screen can do what Abraham did and ask the Judge of all the earth for what is just.

Near to the brokenhearted

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit,” David wrote (Psalm 34:18). The thirteen who died bore the image of God (Genesis 1:27), as does the man now in a cell at Fort Leavenworth. The thirty-two wounded and the families of the dead have the same date. Care for them arrives through a neighbor who brings supper and a church that keeps a soldier’s family on its prayer list after the story has moved on. Someone with a free evening can be that neighbor.

“He was crushed for our iniquities,” Isaiah wrote of the servant who would be killed (Isaiah 53:5). Jesus died in the place of the scoffers and the mourners in that crowd. The reader who wants to see Hasan pay and the reader who looks down on the first one need the same Savior. At early dawn on the first day of the week women brought spices to the tomb, and two men in dazzling clothes asked them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5). The Christian’s hope rests on that empty tomb, and the Army’s calendar has no bearing on it.

Four · Today

Five things, and none of them are “stay informed”

The weeks before 3 December hold time for five jobs, and each of them can begin this week.

1. 01

   Ask a friend if he plans to watch, and answer the same question yourself.

   Raise it with a friend who will give you a straight reply, and give your own reason in one sentence before he gives his. David asked God, “Search me, O God, and know my heart” (Psalm 139:23). If your honest reason is to see him die, put that in the sentence. Ask your friend what he hears in it.

2. 02

   Learn the thirteen names before 3 December.

   Look up the list of the thirteen people killed in the Fort Hood attack and read it at supper, with the ages and hometowns the newspapers printed. Let your children ask what they want to ask. Paul told the Corinthians that God comforts us “so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction” (2 Corinthians 1:4).

3. 03

   Call the veteran in your church before the end of October.

   Phone the man or woman in your congregation who has worn the uniform and ask what the announcement has stirred up. Let him finish before you offer a thought about the execution. Proverbs says, “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent” (Proverbs 10:19). If he served at Fort Hood, ask him to tell you about the post.

4. 04

   Settle who will be within reach at one o’clock Central on 3 December.

   That day falls on a workday for most people. Write down where you will be at one o’clock Central and the name of the person you can reach, a colleague or a pastor who has agreed to pick up the phone. The church in Thessalonica heard from Paul, “encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

5. 05

   Give a pastor an hour with the picture you keep returning to.

   The announcement may have stirred up a hatred you cannot set down, or a dread that comes when you picture the day. This month, phone a pastor or a biblical counselor and ask to meet. David wrote in a psalm that opens with a man begging God to listen, “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you” (Psalm 55:22). Tell him which of the three readers you have been and what you have pictured.