Every so often, I go up to Eagle Rock Park to look at the Memorial Wall, and read the names of those who were killed in the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. As I read the list, I try to think back on what I was doing that morning. It was 9:15 AM or there about; I was teaching a class in Christian Ethics at a college in Massachusetts. In the midst of the class a student who usually came to class late rushed in and said, “Dr. Kennedy you can mark me late if you want, I don’t care. I am late because two planes have just struck the Twin Towers in New York. Everything seems to be in confusion. Turn on the Television, if you don’t believe me.” I quickly took out the video I was about to show the class and turned on the TV and there it was, fires burning. After catching a breath, one student reported that his mother works in one of the Towers. Another said her cousin was there. I quickly dismissed the class and ran across the Campus to the president’s office to give my advice that he was to prepare for a special chapel and do so urgently. He immediately stopped what he was doing and as talked a little about the tragedy, students began to bring reports that their parents, relatives and friends were supposed to be at work in the Towers. The rest of the day was as it was in many places; shock, ambivalence, despair, vulnerability, helplessness, anger, and rage, all of those feelings that come with tragedy.
As the days went by and the knowledge came that the American safety and security were totally compromised, other feelings surfaced, such as resentment and revenge for those who perpetrated the crime. When the Commander in Chief, President George W. Bush called for war against the perpetrators of the crime, many persons went to sign up to defend America against any such future attack. Two wars have been or are being fought. Osama bin Laden and many other terrorist leaders have been killed or captured. Yet we are still wrestling with the eerie feelings caused by September 11, 2001.
We live today in a new world, one in which we have given up much of our privacy for safety and security. We are now in a world in which we struggle with the ways in which we are to maintain our Civil Rights. We are now asking whether it will be ever possible to live again with the kind of naïve innocence that we in America use to live. We even still wonder about whether we will truly trust again or love again. We think of these and many other questions that might be of interest to the nation or more personal to us.
September 11 has been life changing, and in some ways the nations of the world are trapped in tragic fear and anxiety. Fear and anxiety are part of the reality of sin and has been with humanity since the beginning of time. However, there seems to be an intensity of fear and anxiety in the times in which we are living. Although a larger and larger percentage of the Pentagon and Homeland Security budgets are being spent on security and safety, intense fears and anxieties are not going away. Although we might challenge each other not to fear or not to be anxious, it is clear that on a human plane most persons still identify with the general fear. I constantly have to ask myself, where is my hope, where is my trust, where shall I find safety and rest? Thank God that each time I ask, I am led back to the Bible where it points to Christ and his coming to reign.
Yes, as I keep reflecting on September 11, my only hope is for the Lord Jesus Christ to come and arrest the first terrorist of our earth, namely the devil.
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