Remembering 9/11: A Day of Horror and Tragedy

Sept. 11, 2001 will always be one of those, “Where were you when…?” days, similar to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; the space shuttle Challenger exploding and killing seven crew members, and other tragic events of like magnitude.

 

What were you doing on this day 22 years ago? Do you remember? For most of us, what we now refer to as “9/11” started off just like any other day. We were working, leaving for work, going to school, finishing breakfast, or engaged in any number of everyday life activities. Who knew that before 10 that morning, the world as we knew it would be turned upside-down?

No one could have imagined the horrific scenario: Commercial jets being hijacked and slamming directly into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, another into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a fourth diverted from its intended target by courageous passengers, crashing instead in rural Pennsylvania. 

This memorial fountain at the World Trade
Center includes names of people whose
lives were lost on Sept. 11, 2001.

Nearly 3,000 lives were lost that day, including more than 2,000 in the iconic towers that incredibly were reduced to rubble, as well as hundreds of first responders, and the 19 terrorists coordinating the attacks. 

We now have a whole generation of young people who basically know nothing about that evil day because they were too young or not born yet. But for those of us who helplessly watched live news reports as the tragic events unfolded, that day will remain etched in our memories forever. 

 

I think of my friend Jerry, an entrepreneur who had worked in the North Tower for years. He would have been on one of the building’s top floors that morning if he had not overslept. Instead, he was sitting in his kitchen reading the paper and drinking a cup of coffee when one of his daughters frantically called to see where he was and if he was safe. Even to this day, the memory of friends he lost that day saddens him.

 

For a brief time following the attacks, our nation seemed to experience a spiritual revival of sorts. Many thousands thronged to churches, some of whom rarely if ever had attended before. Countless prayers were offered as realities of the heinous acts raised questions that seemed unanswerable. At moments like that – faced with life’s fragility and the heightened sense of evil’s presence – it’s common to become desperate for hope.

 

As often happens, however, within weeks our lives had returned to “business as usual,” despite newly enforced security checks that would dramatically alter travel experiences and other measures enacted to prevent future acts of terrorism. 

 

Without becoming morbid, we should use this day to pause, remember, and reflect on things that matter most. Not the football games played last weekend, the weather, what’s on our calendars, or even the perpetual political wrangling that seems beyond resolution. 

 

Things that seem so important today will one day cease to be. We’re assured of this in James 4:13-15, which says, “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you should say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’”

 

It’s good to recognize how fleeting earthly life is – and how uncertain. We’d also be wise if we took to heart Jesus’ challenge from His sermon on the mount: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19-20).

 

As the old saying reminds us, “You can’t take it with you.” But we can send it ahead – things that will endure for eternity – as Jesus’ admonition suggests. 

 

On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of men, women and children had plans for later in the day, the next week or the next month. In a flash, their plans were changed for eternity. This sounds hauntingly like 1 Corinthians 15:52 which says, “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye…the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” 

No one knows exactly when that will be. But that day will come, as certainly as the sun rising in the east and the sky being blue. Will we be ready?

Do We Dare Release the Fading Memory of 9/11?

A new tower stands at the World Trade Center, along with
historic Trinity Church that was spared of destruction on 9/11.

Sept. 11, 2001 started off as what seemed to be just an ordinary day. Millions of people going to work, to school, the grocery store, the gym, the doctor, the auto repair shop. By midmorning, however, it seemed as if the world had been turned upside-down – at least in the United States.

Four commercial airline jets had been hijacked and commandeered, three crashing into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the west side of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and because of heroic efforts of passengers, a fourth crashed near Shanksville, Pa. before it could reach another destination for destruction and mayhem.

 

In all, 2,996 people died as a direct result of the hijacked plane crashes, not only passengers and occupants of the buildings but also firefighters, paramedics and police officers.

 

Sadly, in the more than two decades since, the sense of horror and disbelief has become a fading memory for many people. There are memorials at the site of what’s become known as “Ground Zero,” but aside from the unending annoyance of passenger screening at airports that didn’t exist prior to ”9/11,” there’s little to remind us of what transpired that day.

 

An entire generation of young people who weren’t even born at the time know little or nothing about the terrorist acts. In fact, a U.S. congresswoman once referenced the Sept. 11, 2001 events as “somebody did something.”

 

The evening of 9/11, and for days and weeks afterward, churches across America were jammed with mourners, frightened Americans and persons seeking answers for the orchestrated acts of hatred. However, within a month or two, the temporary spiritual fervor had waned as people calmed down and returned to “life as usual.” Today, instead of flocking to the nation’s churches, it seems throngs of people are leaving them, apparently convinced they don’t need God.

 

Should we release the diminishing remembrances of 9/11, dismissing them as “that was then, this is now”? Simply as “somebody did something” and leave it at that?

 

The answer should be a decided and unequivocal “No!” Just as we dare not abandon the painful yet important histories of slavery, the Holocaust, and other terrible times in the annals of humankind. Not to stir up renewed anger and festering bitterness, but to remember the individuals who died, the families devastated that day – and the terrifying example of the evil possible when God is removed from the equation.

 

As we read the Bible, especially the story of the Israelites in the Old Testament, we learn the consequences of short memories. The Israelites saw God perform great miracles in freeing them from four centuries of bondage in Egypt – creating plagues that eventually convinced Pharaoh to let them go; parting the Red Sea as Egyptian chariots and horses pursued them; providing water, manna and quail to sustain countless thousands of men, women and children. Yet, during times of prosperity, they quickly forgot what He had done.

 

We see the Israelites faithfully serving and worshiping God when led by humble prophets and godly kings, but once those leaders died, the people quickly turned to idolatry and pagan practices. Memories were extremely short, especially during good times when they forgot they needed God. As the book of Judges concludes, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25).

 

Things haven’t changed much in the many centuries since. In the days after 9/11, some expressed the opinion that one reason the Lord allowed such unbelievable acts of evil was to get our attention, to remind us of our need for Him. Perhaps for a moment or two He did have our attention, but it appears we have turned our focus to other things. For many people, God is a mere afterthought, if that.

 

Not long ago I read a compelling quote from the late Aleksandr Solshenitsyn, a famous Soviet author and outspoken critic of communism until his death in 2008. He was arrested for his dissent and suffered for eight years in the notorious Russian gulag system. He wrote novels about Soviet oppression – one, The Gulag Archipelago, won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. Here’s what he said:

 

“Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.' Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.'”

 

We live in perilous times today. As dark memories of 9/11 fade, as more and more people live ignorant of such acts motivated by fathomless evil, we’re also losing the conviction of our individual and collective need for God. All around us, we are reaping what we’ve sown.

 

Proverbs 29:18 carries a cautionary message: “When there is no vision, the people perish….” Another translation states it this way: “Where there is no [prophetic] revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.”

Did the Lord allow the tragic events of 9/11 to serve as a wakeup call to a nation – and a world – turning their back on Him? That’s up for debate. But we can’t ignore the reality that absent of an understanding of God’s design for us and standards for living, people indeed are casting off restraint and ultimately perishing, empty and hopeless. That’s what happens when, as Solzhenitsyn wrote, “Men have forgotten God.”