Dear Friends,
Can you imagine making this phone call?
It’s difficult for me to fathom that I have a daughter turning 18 years old next month. What’s more difficult for me to fathom is that she was not alive the day that phone call was made. It was earth-shattering. Try as I might, I cannot really imagine having no memory of it. Yet an entire generation is transitioning into adulthood and has no memory of September 11, 2001.
Memory is important.
In the Bible God tells his people constantly to “remember.” Remember his laws, his statutes, his commandments, and his mighty works. God’s people build memorials and altars to help them remember. Jesus instituted a meal and said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” There is something important about collective memory and, strange as it sounds to put it this way, “landmarks” in time.
Christians often have a deficient appreciation for history. After all, “this world is not our home,” and history as we know it is just the history of this world and—so goes the thought—we are leaving this world behind. What’s important is our personal spiritual lives and the events and upheavals on the world stage are of minimal consequence in the long term. I think this sentiment is the art of trying to be more spiritual and pious than God himself.
This world is something of intense interest to God. It is his very own creation and the object of his plans, purposes, and desires. “For God so loved the world…” He created the world and fashioned it “in the beginning.” “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He cares about space and time. From the rise and fall of kingdoms to the lowliest sparrow that falls to the ground to the number of hairs on our heads, all of it is held in the palm of his hand and he cares about it.
He even cares about towers falling on people (Luke 13:4).
The whole creation “groans,” Paul tells us, longing for its liberation from its bondage to decay. And while Paul assures us that our present sufferings “are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us,” he doesn’t then conclude that our sufferings don’t matter. On the contrary, we ourselves “groan inwardly” (Rom. 8:23), and the Spirit helps us pray when we are literally at a loss for words (8:26).
Do you remember? Oh, that day. A loss for words.
This anniversary comes around every year, and it can seem so rote and trite to once again post that image of the Twin Towers burning on our Facebook walls.
But it is important to remember, not just so that we can show off patriotic pride and national unity. But rather:
Just how fleeting our lives are. “Unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:5).
The reality of sin, death, and the devil. “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44).
The heartbreaking beauty of the gospel, witnessed to in analogous portraiture over and over again as hundreds of people gave no thought for their own lives as they sought to save others. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:6-8).
This is what I remember. And I want my children to remember it, too, albeit in an altogether insufficiently vicarious way.
Of all the vivid memories of that time, for me this snapshot encapsulates all of it:
Miscellany
Sorry for the shorter newsletter this week. I was going to write on a few other topics, but by the time I got here it all dimmed in importance. But I’ll list a few things that made an impact on me this week:
This is a fascinating (and lengthy) essay on masculinity and the church. It is very eye-opening to me, and puts a finger on a number of troublesome trends I myself have noticed. There is a huge disparity that needs correction between how the church ministers to men and to women. Men are not being valued and built up, and they are heading for the exits in droves.
My friend Jerry Bowyer wrote a lament of sorts about the current cultural moment, and it articulates exactly how I feel.
Do you want to know what happens if neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump win enough Electoral College votes? I’m glad you asked. Alexandra DeSanctis has you covered. Pray that this disaster doesn’t occur. But, being 2020, it sounds about right.
I’ll leave you this week with Mary Chapin Carpenter telling the story of her post-9/11 song, “Grand Central Station.” It’s followed by the song, of course.