Reflections on September 11, 2001

How could anyone old enough to know what was going on not remember where they were when the news first reached them on September 11, 2001? For me, I had taught an early morning class at Point University (then Atlanta Christian College) and was getting in my little gray Toyota pickup to head to my office at First Christian in Tyrone. As soon as the radio came on, the news of an airplane flying into the World Trade Center in New York was just beginning to break on WSB Radio.

Describing that day and the days that followed as eerie would be to understate reality. I’m old enough to remember where I was when President Kennedy was assassinated, when Dr. King was shot in Memphis, and when Senator Kennedy was killed in Los Angeles. I remember the attempted assassination of President Ford and then President Reagan. I remember the Challenger disaster. But this was different and Americans, along with most other westerners are still adjusting to the post-9/11 world.

What seemed to be a kind of benign naiveté about the post-Cold War world was shattered in ways that few of us anticipated could ever happen. At one level, the evil exhibited by those who took control of the planes and deliberately crashed them in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC was of such intensity that we had a hard time grasping its reality. At a different level, the bravery of so many first responders served to remind us that even in the midst of incredible evil, the goodness of the human heart could not be defeated. At a completely different level, our hearts were broken by the grief that invaded countless families who loved ones went to work early on 9/11 unaware that they would never return home. On top of all of those deeply embedded emotions the question of how followers of Jesus respond to the people who caused such evil still remains.  How deeply sad it is that, for a variety of reasons, they didn’t know the Prince of Peace who calls on humans to turn the other cheek.

Since that awful day, countless more lives have been lost in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and other hot spots in the world. The current crisis in Syria and what the appropriate response to despicable evil behavior should be floods the public conversation. And what about Egypt? Or Iran? Or countless other hotspots all over the world? Even in our own culture, we’ve witnessed the tension created by the events associated with 9/11 boiling over in ways that are disturbing.

In Luke 13, Jesus is engaged in a conversation that sounds as though it could have occurred in our own age. Two particular incidents are brought to the attention of those around Jesus. One is an act of evil caused by a pagan ruler; the other a horrible accident. Both incidents involved the loss of what we tend to describe as “innocent lives.” Rather than assuming that those who died in the two incidents were somehow more sinful than others, Jesus reminds those around him that the appropriate response of everyone is simply to repent.

In encouraging those around him to repent, Jesus isn’t condoning Pilate’s awful behavior nor is he discounting the pain of those who lost loved ones in the horrible accident in Siloam. But he is insistent that thoughtful people, upon hearing such news, will quickly realize that no one is immune from such incidents and the best thing we can do is repent.

As the recipients of such awful evil, we may quickly point out that we did nothing to cause the horrible evil of 9/11. We didn’t highjack the planes and cause them to crash, killing thousands of people. Without the awful events of 9/11, it is unlikely that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would have been fought. But the same could be said by those whose families were ripped apart by Pilate’s evil behavior and by those whose loved ones were killed when the tower at Siloam fell. So what in the world is Jesus doing saying, “Repent?”

If nothing else, such events remind us of the brevity of life. Who among us has a guarantee of even tomorrow? No one on 9/10/2001 seemed to realize what was about to happen and as long as evil is present in the world there is never a guarantee of safety. What better word could Jesus say than to remind us to repent?

But such repentance is not offered to God in fear. Rather we repent in hope and confident assurance of God’s eternal care for His people. N.T. Wright, in his new book, The Case for the Psalms, reminds us that “The Psalter forms the great epic poem of the creator and covenant God who will at the last visit and redeem his people and, with them, his whole creation.” (page 33)

On this day of remembrance, we must express gratitude for the countless lives that were offered in protecting and rescuing others. We cannot fail to appreciate those who have sought to protect us from other such acts of evil. We must pray that the gospel will penetrate the darkness of the world and bring light to those who cannot yet see the glory of the kingdom of God. Taking Jesus to heart, we should also reflect on our own lives where we will, no doubt, discover a call to repentance.

I don’t fully understand how it is that I was blessed to be born into the family I was, born in a place where following Jesus was an easy choice, and privileged to freely study Scripture as the trustworthy word of God. But I was. For that I remain eternally grateful. But the idea that “to whom much is given, much is required” serves to remind me that the blessing of birth is a call to share that blessing with others. Had the evil doers of 9/11 been blessed to have been born where I was, they would never have committed such evil acts. Until the whole world knows Jesus, His call to us is “repent.”