17 years ago, the World Trade Center towers fell taking with it thousands of lives and dispelling the notion that America was safely at a distance from the reach of terrorists.
17 years ago, Americans sat in stunned silence watching those massive towers burn and fall, watching men and women desperately racing away from a wave of dust and debris racing down Lower Manhattan streets, watching brave men and women running toward danger in an attempt to save those that they could, watching with tears and a sense of helpless at the senseless evil unfolding live on our televisions.
17 years ago, people who had not prayed in years, in their helplessness, turned their eyes heavenward to God once again, all the while asking why that very same God might allow such horrific acts to happen.
17 years ago, those things which divided us momentarily disappeared as we were united in our horror at the devastation in New York, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania, as we were united in our sorrow over the loss of so many men, women, and even children who believed it was just another day, and as we were united in our commitment to find and bring to justice those who committed these unimaginable acts of cruelty.
17 years ago, our world changed. Time has eased the pain, but it has not erased the memories. Life did not go back to normal, we simply learned to redefine normal. We added phrases like “war on terror” to our vocabularies, and from that point, kept adding phrases like “al Qaeda” and “ISIS” and “Boko Haran.” Countless people have died on both sides of this unholy war, and most of those have been noncombatants. Families in America, as in so many other nations, will have empty places at their dinner table because moms and dads went to fight this war and never came home.
17 years ago… it seems like yesterday, and yet it seems like a thousand years have passed.
Today we remember. We stir up the embers of our grief. We say a prayer for those lost and those who still fight and those who suffer because the fighting still goes on. Perhaps we dig out that flag lapel pin or rehang that flag that has been unceremoniously folded in the back of the closet. It is not that we have forgotten – we cannot forget – it is that we have adjusted, adapted, found a way to live in this strange new world. But we do so with a haunting uneasiness.
I know that you expect a pastor to write something uplifting and encouraging on a day like this. I could. We have many blessings and many people to bring about thankfulness. But today the gravity of day 17 years ago hangs heavy on me, like a cold, iron chain on my shoulders. I can close my eyes and see the smoke rising from those towers, from the Pentagon, and from that Pennsylvania field. I feel the echoes from that initial shock and from the lingering sorrow. On this day, I simply say with the Apostle John, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.”
Be Transformed 