The deadly attack on American personnel in Syria—and President Trump’s pledge of a decisive response—has once again forced the country to confront a question we never seem to settle: What is worth the cost? Every time U.S. service members are killed abroad, the debate begins almost instantly. Why are we there? What are we gaining? When does it end? And underneath all of it sits a quieter, sharper accusation: Was this worth it?

That word—worth—does a lot of work in public debate. It is also where moral clarity often collapses.

Counting the Cost Without Understanding the Value

Much of the immediate reaction to the Syria attack followed a familiar pattern. Some called for overwhelming retaliation, others for immediate withdrawal, and many for a full accounting of dollars, deployments, and political risk. These questions are not illegitimate. Governments are obligated to count costs. But when cost becomes the only lens through which sacrifice is judged, we risk missing the reality those sacrifices are meant to confront.

The New Testament gives us a striking parallel. In Mark 14:3–9, a woman breaks an alabaster jar of spikenard—an extravagant, expensive act—pouring it on Jesus. Those watching object that it could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Their logic is efficient, tidy, and morally flattering. Jesus rejects it outright: “She hath wrought a good work on me” (Mark 14:6).

Their mistake was not valuing the poor; it was misunderstanding the moment. They evaluated devotion strictly by measurable output, while she recognized the gravity of what was unfolding. Jesus was heading toward His death, and she responded accordingly: fully, freely, and without holding anything back.

That tension mirrors today’s Syria debate. The question is not whether military engagement carries costs. It undeniably does. The question is whether we understand why those costs exist and what happens when we pretend security, deterrence, and moral responsibility can be achieved without risk.

Syria and the Reality We Keep Wanting to Outrun

The Syria attack is a reminder many would prefer to ignore: the world did not become safe just because we declared certain wars “over.” Extremist violence persists, power vacuums remain dangerous, and American interests—along with American lives—are still implicated in unstable regions.

President Trump’s response reflects a recognition of that reality. Deterrence matters. When attacks on U.S. forces are met with hesitation or paralysis, the message received by adversaries is not restraint. It’s permission. Strength, properly applied, is not recklessness; it is a warning meant to prevent further bloodshed.

At the same time, seriousness demands restraint guided by strategy rather than emotion. Retaliation is not an end in itself. The purpose is to protect American lives, degrade hostile actors, and maintain order where chaos invites worse violence. That balance is difficult but abandoning it entirely does not make the world safer. It makes it more predictable for those who thrive on instability.

Sacrifice Is Not the Same Thing as Waste

The lives lost in Syria were not abstractions. They were Americans serving in a dangerous place because the world remains dangerous. Calling their deaths “pointless” may feel compassionate or pragmatic, but it risks echoing the same error made in Bethany: confusing measurable efficiency with actual worth.

Scripture does not glorify death, but it does refuse to treat faithful service as meaningless simply because it is costly. Sacrifice aimed at preserving life and restraining evil is not waste, even when outcomes are imperfect or incomplete.

President Trump is right to insist that attacks on Americans demand a response. He is also right—implicitly—to reject the idea that safety can be achieved by retreat alone. The challenge ahead is not to abandon engagement, nor to escalate blindly, but to act with moral seriousness in a world that will not cooperate with our desire for clean solutions.

The Hard Truth the Syria Attack Forces Us to Face

The Syria attack confronts Americans with a truth we repeatedly resist: order is fragile, evil adapts, and peace is not self-sustaining. Maintaining it requires vigilance, restraint, and sometimes sacrifice that cannot be fully justified by short-term metrics.

Jesus defended an act of devotion others dismissed as waste because He understood the moment they refused to see. The lesson is not that cost doesn’t matter, but that value cannot always be reduced to calculations made from a safe distance.

If we are going to debate Syria honestly, we should do so with eyes open, acknowledging both the risks of action and the risks of withdrawal, and resisting the temptation to pretend that responsibility can be exercised without cost.

Because the real danger is not that sacrifice is too expensive.

It’s that we no longer recognize what is worth it.