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My diary reads,
It is Tuesday September 9, 2008, as I am preparing for a chaplain’s meeting at the Dayton, Ohio Veteran’s Administration. At 2:44 PM the sun is shining brightly and the weather is perfect with a gentle breeze blowing. Straight ahead of me lies the DYTN. VA National Cemetery with what seems to be rows upon rows upon rows of white marble markers that designate where a veteran who has died now lies
Before our meeting I chatted with one of the V.A. chaplains who advised me he would have to leave early to preside over the funeral and burial of a veteran in the V.A. National Cemetery. As I sit soaking in the beauty before my eyes… I can, in my mind, hear the taps and 21-gun salute that is traditional in a military funeral. I can visualize the next of kin receiving the red, white and blue American flag on behalf of their love one and a grateful nation for their love ones military service that protected our freedoms as Americans. As I visualize this in my mind it all seems so surreal, surreal which means something not real, something in my mind that can’t be reality.
Maybe that is how I visualize the memory of 09/11/2001. Something that is surreal, for it really could not happen in the United States of America yet it really did happen.
Today, Sunday September 14, 2008, we come together in worship to remember September 11, 2001. A day when the United States of America received one of the worse attacks upon its own soil since Pearl Harbor that is etched upon our minds as though it only just happened. A day that is a bad dream that will go away when I wake up in the morning.
Why did 09/11 happen? We can debate that question until we are blue in the face and maybe still not come to a collective agreeable answer.
Romans 7:13-20
Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin, which dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.
Listen very carefully to what I am about to say. I do not believe 09/11/2001, occurred because God was getting even with America for her stance on abortion, sin, and life styles. I believe 09/11/2001, occurred because of the evil forces in the world that want to bring destruction to those whom they believe have it better than them or will not bend to their mindset.
What we may all agree upon is that 09/11/2001 did happen. From this sadness a new American hero emerged amidst the rubble and the smoke. A new hero unlike those who play a child’s game of sports being dependent on steroids. A new hero who you do not have to worry what they are wearing or saying words that a child, or any decent human, should not hear.
America has come to realize a new Biblical hero who on 09/11/2001, like Moses served in humbleness.
Through the tragedy of the darkness of daylight a new light has emerged, a light of hope.
Her name is Alissa Torres. Alissa’s husband Eddie was a Columbian immigrant who had worked his way up from being a delivery boy, thought he had found his dream job as a currency broker for Cantor Fitzgerald. He began his first day’s work at the World Trade Center on September 10, 2001. Alissa was eight months pregnant when her husband was killed on 09/11/2001.
In her grief, Alissa has written a book titled American Widow, in which she describes her memories of 09/11. Alissa writes,
“When I found out about the planes hitting the towers I wanted to go downtown. It was kind of crazy, but that was what I wanted to do. But I was sane enough to realize that I was pregnant and that a walk down to Ground Zero meant that I needed food and water to take with me. This was the first time someone was kind to me because I was a 09/11widow.”
Alissa goes on to share in the book she has written and is illustrated by Sungyoon Choi, “The book embodies my grief. I can open it and see this grief and remember it and remember Eddie. But I can also close it and live my life in the present tense seven years later and have a happy home for my son.”
On this day, right where you are at this very moment where are you living? In the past or “in the present tense and have a happy home.”
A few years ago a United States submarine sank off the coast of New England. The rescue operations led to the discovery of the disabled vessel in the bottom of the oceans. When the divers approached the submarine, they heard this message tapped out in Morse code: “Is there hope?”
That is the question still tapped from within the depths of the human heart. In the hour of tragedy and of impending death it is most painful, but hope is never a luxury that we can never get along without. Hope is necessary for hope is faith in the future, faith that gives one courage and strength to face the present. Young people often have this hope as they have something to strive for in the future. Older people are often the ones who struggle as they feel they have no hope for a future as they have nothing to live for except death.
Such a state of mind is nothing less than a living hell. “Hell,” says Scottish novelist A. J. Cronin, is the place where one has ceased to hope.” Words that echo what Victor Frankl wrote of his experience and observation of living as a prisoner in a Nazi Concentration Camp during WWII.
Listen to what Victor Frankl wrote: “Those who know how close the connection is between the state of mind of a man-his courage and his hope, or lack of them-and the state of immunity of his body will understand that the sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect.”
For if one is hopeless in facing death. One is also hopeless in facing life. When faced with struggles and tragedies in my life, as I have looked myself in the mirror I have asked myself a question. “Who’s in charge of my life; my Hope or my death?”
The good news of 09/11, gives the answer to our question. Yes, there is hope. Those who survived 09/11, those who were caught underneath the debris of 09/11, Alissa Torres… the United States of America… have survived for there was hope to hold onto.
Hope for a better tomorrow, hope for human life, and hope to not be defeated by the enemy. Hope to reclaim what is mine.
The men in the sunken submarine, as any of us, were utterly unable to cope on their own with their tragic situation. Their only hope was coming from the outside.
That is the message of 09/11/2001 for all of us. Trapped by evil powers of existence and death, we may feel helpless and doomed. But there is hope, for rescue from the outside.
“Shackled by a heavy burden, ‘neath a load of guilt and shame, then the hand of Jesus touched me, and now I am no longer the same. He touched me; O he touched me, and O the joy that floods my soul. Something happened, and now I know, he touched me and made me whole.”
In my life I have seen people live who should have died and people die that should have lived. Why? HOPE! They hoped themselves to death or they hoped themselves to life.
Hope, that I believe comes from the perception within and a threefold perception:
1.) The word of God. For by the encouragement of scriptures we can have hope. By listening to the medley of conflicting voices in the world that we live in we become discouraged. In the scriptures we find hope as Luther says in his picturesque way, “the Bible is the lowly donkey which brings the Advent King into the Jerusalem of our hearts.”
2.) The center of the Bible and the center of our hope lies in the Jewish Messiah; Jesus. In quoting the Apostle Isaiah, Romans 15:12-13, “and further Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse shall come, he who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles hope.” May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
3.) Jesus Christ is not only a historical figure but also the indwelling Christ who lives within the hearts of fellow believers and empowers them to overcome all obstacles. The last enemy to overcome is death. Death is real, and the hope of obstacles, the hope in facing death, does not lie in human beings but in the hope of life through God the Father.
My friend Jim Spaniel used to own a boat and I loved to go out on the reservoir with him. We would cruise along enjoying the water and the scenery and then on purpose Jim would kick that boat into ‘GO’, without announcing his intentions. AS THAT BOAT WOULD REV UP, THE BOW CAME OUT OF THE WATER AND JIM WOULD LAUGH AT THE EXPRESSION ON MY FACE.
I always knew Jim at some point would hit the throttle and take off, and I always waited with anticipation for that moment. I also always knew that boat would leave the biggest wake behind it as we zoomed along.
Life is a lot like the boat ride I always enjoyed with Jim. In our lives there is a wake behind us, from where we have been. That wake from what has happened in our life cannot make us move forward. But if we make the choice to get caught up in the undercurrent, fall off instead of looking forward, that wake can and will seriously harm and or destroy us and or our future.
In my left hand I am holding a book titled: THE 09/11 COMMISSION REPORT FINAL REPORT OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES.
In my right hand I am holding a book titled: HOLY BIBLE.
We cannot change the past, so it doesn’t do any good to say, “If only.” Our future is not in bondage, does not have to be in bondage, to the past. Our future is our choice on how we wish to live it. May we individually As Christians and citizens of the United States of America remember the lessons from 09/11/2001 in our lives. Remember and move on in strength and knowledge so that we may be better American citizens and of this world. Let us enter into prayer,
Father God, help us to learn needed lessons from the past and to grow in this knowledge while having hope for a new tomorrow. Amen.
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