"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." - Genesis 1:1
Yesterday was Patriot Day, which is an interesting day to me in that Patriot Day is not a federal holiday. Schools and businesses do not close in observance of the occasion, although memorial ceremonies for the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks are held each year, including ceremonies that the President of our nation is involved in. I myself always watch parts of some of the many TV shows that recount the events of that horrible day. I always pray for the victims and their families. And I always find myself getting choked up.
So, there's Presidential recognition. There's all sorts of shows and ceremonies and remembrances. And there's clearly an emotional pull on my heart and on the hearts of many. Yet, Patriot Day is not a holiday, so for many it's just another day.
It's like our country wants to remember, and yet we don't. It's like we don't want to keep reliving the pain. We just want things to get back to normal. We just want 9/11 to be another normal day.
I understand because I agree with the controversial "Harry Potter" author, J.K. Rowling, who I heard in an interview when she said something like this, "Heroes are people who go through great difficulty and somehow return to some normalcy in life."
My slight revision of Rowling's words are this, "Heroes are people whose lives were somehow reduced to nothing, and yet somehow they persevere until some normalcy is restored to their life."
That's what happened on the original 9/11 when the terrorists attacked, namely, thousands of lives, and our nation as a whole, were reduced to nothing. People thought the world was about to end. Everything became uncertain. And nothing seemed to matter.
Except life and loved ones and the God of life, to whom all Christian believers (and many an atheist) cried out.
About 500 years ago, Martin Luther was quoted to say, "God created the world out of nothing; so as long as we are nothing, he can make something out of us." And there lies the pull of Patriot Day on our hearts. We somehow feel and even long for the remembrance of a day in history when nothing else mattered except life and loved ones and the God of the Christian and atheist alike. What I mean by including the atheist is that 9/11 created a national version of the quote, "There are no atheists in the foxholes of war." When our lives are stripped to nothing, there's nothing for anyone to long for except the things that really exist: life, loved ones, and the God of life and loved ones.
If only, somehow, that could become the norm.
Indeed, when "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1), that's what the God of life and loved ones intended.
That a normal day, everyday, would be a day when we'd consciously and constantly realize that our lives are nothing if we don't have life, loved ones, and the God of life and loved ones.
Dear Lord, through all the stuff that we think we have to do today and through all the stuff that somebody else thinks we have to do today, please help us to have a normal day. Help us to have a day as you created and meant everyday to be. Help us to value nothing more than the things that really matter: life, loved ones, and you, Lord, for you are the God of life and loved ones. And may this be true for us all. For such a world, such a Paradise, such a heaven, is the norm for which we all long. And it's the world that you have given us through faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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