Remembering 9/11

"Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death." (Revelation 20:14, NIV)

Where were you on 9/11? At 8:45 AM Central Time, Amy Corbin, then secretary to the Dean at Beeson Divinity School in B'ham, AL, interrupted Dr. Fisher Humphreys' theology class with a message from his wife: "Turn on the TV right now!" Dr. Humphreys turned on the mounted television in our classroom to find that the World Trade Centers and the Pentegon were under attack. Three airplanes had crashed into the buildings. No one new how many were killed. A fourth plane had just crashed in western Pennsylvania. Word was that the state department was to be evacuated due to threats that a car bomb was set to explode outside. It never happened. However, no one knew that day when the madness would end. Our lives changed forever. The stronghold of the United States of America had been breached.

Later that morning, all students and faculty gathered in the beautifully adorned chapel to worship. We had to make sense of the chaos around us. Many had to make sense, and give interpretations. At the time I was a Minister to Students at a large church outside Birmingham. I want to share the contrast of stories that were told in chapel with that large Baptist Church.

At Beeson we gathered at the Lord's Table. We opened the word. Dean Timothy George preached an eloquent, intelligent, and timely message regarding the events that unfolded hours earlier. We remembered The Story. We remembered that the greatest tragedy was not the falling of the Trade Center, but that the world crucified its Savior, its Lord, and its God. We remembered that evil is all around. Try as we might, we cannot offer an explanation for the vid of evil that eats away at the fabric of God's creation and God's creatures. This is what human beings do - we trash true goodness when it is embodied in our world. This is what we do, unless God acts. We remembered that God took the gift of His Son, the gift we threw out, and did something even greater - He raised the dead. This is the power of God, as Paul writes to the Ephesian church in chapter 1. God is not a God who is thwarted by human decision, evil and death. God is a God who brings life where there is none - especially in the midst of death. We rememembered those gifts as we ate bread and drank from the cup. His body. His blood. For us.

At the local Baptist Church, the flavor was different. The room was filled with Red, White and Blue. We told a different story. We did not talk about His body and His blood. Instead, we found comfort in Patriotic Songs, our colors, and that God was on our side - America's side. Some suggested that God was judging America for our country's sins. Others suggested that God had lifted his hand of protection from America, and allowed this atrocity to happen to bring the country back to God. No gospel. No power. Only blame, hurt, and bad theology.

I imagine that many, like me, turned to both these stories. I love my country and I was mad that we were made to look naked, vulnerable, and dishonored before the world. I was startled that I no longer lived under a stronghold of a nation that could nuke any nation that even thought about attacking our soil. Those thoughts ran through my mind. But also, thanks to the worship leaders at Beeson, I remembered what God does with evil. I remembered the story that shaped my destiny, that shapes the destiny of the church, and the destiny of the world.

Yet, the next day was Wednesday, and I had a room full, probably 80 plus teenagers that I had to address. I had a choice. How was I to explain 9/11? I remembered in chapel looking at the bust of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the six Twentieth-century martyrs mounted on the wall of Beeson's chapel, and remembered these words:

"Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love...What makes the Christian different from other men is the "peculiar"...the "extraordinary," the "unusual," that which is not "a matter of course....What is the extraordinary? It is the love of Jesus Christ himself, who went patiently and obediently to the cross - it is in fact the cross itself. The "extraordinary" - and this is the supreme scandal - is something that the followers of Jesus do." (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, trans., NY: Simon and Schuster, 1995)

As the youth gathered, we had a question and answer time. Our students asked whether or not this really was God's judgment, whether or not this was leading to end-time events. Then, a seventh-grader - a timid, shy, red-headed girl - Melanie Carrol, preached the sermon when she asked: "Doesn't the Bible say that we are to love our enemies?"

And so we told the story. We broke bread. We drank from the cup. We remembered: His body. His blood. For us.

When tragedy strikes, in your body, your family, your community, your country, or even your world, what story do you tell? What story makes sense to you? What do you lean on and rely on for support? For meaning?

For me, it was on 9/11 "The old, old story of Jesus and His love."

May the power of God that can and will undo death be with you today and forever.

Tim