From Ground Zero to Holy Ground - 9/11 Remembrance

Image courtesy of Gary Hershorn / Reuters

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. (Jeremiah 29:11-14)

How can the tragic attacks of September 11 be used for good? How could God allow this to happen? On the other hand, does September 11 really mean anything different for us? Have we really be effected by it? Has life really changed all that much? My question is, “How do we get from ground zero to holy ground?”

In the movie It’s A Wonderful Life one scene refers to the end of World War II. The narration says that people wept and prayed on VE Day and VJ Day and you see scenes of people flocking to a church. When I talked with my clergy friends about 911 we thought that something like this would happen again. With such devastating attacks, we all made our churches available for people to come and pray. At my church at the time we had a prayer service. And at first, it did look like people would flock back to church to find answers to questions. But looking back to a year ago, it seems that America was more interested in getting back to the regular season of football and baseball. That was important. To “get back to normal living.”

The jury is still out whether we can “get back to normal” post-911.

What affect has 911 had on America? So much pain and destruction has to have some affect on us. It has been said that “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” (C.S. Lewis) I believe God is shouting to us, calling us from ground zero to His Holy Ground.

Like just about everything else man makes, we thought the Twin Towers would stand forever. And all indications were that they would. But in the span of a couple of hours, they were reduced to smoking rubble, burying over 2800 people. That site will forever be known as “Ground Zero.” The pictures from there are a part of who we are as a nation today. Smoking ruins, firefighters searching for people. The one that stands out in my mind is the one of the President of the United States with a bullhorn. It is that picture that gave me the words “From Ground Zero to Holy Ground.” Someone in the crowd yelled “We can’t hear you” as he was making a speech. He called back “But I can hear you!”

Can we hear God? God is calling us. He’s shouting at us. He calls us away from our own self-centeredness and things we make for ourselves to something that will last forever. He is calling us from ground zero and its uncertain stability to His Holy Ground that does not move and will stand forever.

When you hear the stories of 911, what do you think? The eye-witness accounts to show that 911 affected all of us, ordinary people and heads of state. But those stories are not the end. Each story can ber followed up by God’s story. For God does have something to say about all this.

God tells us about His peace. It is not peace like the world strives for. So often the world’s peace comes after devastation and the loss of countless lives. But God’s peace came only after one suffered and died, not thousands. God’s peace comes to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Even in the midst of tragedy, among the smoking ruins in New York or Washington DC, the peace of Jesus Christ, the Son of God comes through. Sometimes the Prince of this world – Satan – rears his head in a very public way and motivates people to carry out acts of terror and death. But Jesus Christ overcame Satan when He died on the cross. Satan is a defeated enemy. All these tragic events are but the last gasps of a vanquished foe. In the end they cannot harm us. In fact, they have backfired on Satan. He carries them out to try to defeat us, but the result is that many turn back to God and look for ways to make their relationship stronger with Him!

God also tells us to be ready. When those thousands of people showed up for work on September 11, 2001, or boarded those airplanes, they may not have given any thought that this was to be their last day on earth. But God repeatedly warns us that we do not know when our last day on earth will be. It could be today. In the mean time, God calls to us, shouts to us from ground zero, to be rich toward Him, to begin or strengthen the relationship with Him through Word and Sacrament and Worship. We are rich toward God because Jesus’ death and resurrection gave us the glorious riches of God’s eternal grace. No amount of smoking ruin can take that away from us who have been brought into the Kingdom of God.

A reading from Colossians seems to have been written with 911 in mind. “Since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you....” That has been true for many, many people. Since that day we have prayed, each time we gather for worship, for those in the midst of this tragedy, for our President, for our military personnel, prayed that the peace and comfort of Jesus Christ may be theirs.

“Patience and endurance.” This is what we have been praying for. God calls us to be faithful to Him and to seek Him at all times, but especially in times of tragedy. It is so hard to be patient when we’re facing such tragedy. We want to knownow about a loved one. We want an answer now. We are tempted to give up in the face of such horrible circumstances. But God’s call to us has been to be patient and endure.

For a better time is coming. Ground Zero is temporary. Holy Ground is forever!

There have been so many questions in the past 10 years. The biggest one, it seems to me, has been “How could God allow this to happen.” The answer is not easy. God does love us. So much so that He doesn’t want us to take anything for granted. But with prosperity and financial success like we’ve enjoyed in this country, we are tempted to take many things for granted. Young people live life like they will live forever, that nothing can hurt them. But the world isn’t a peaceful place. It is a dangerous place. Nothing should be taken for granted. Least of all God. He is here. He does love us. He allows tragedy to get our attention and call us back to Him.

The call from Ground Zero is a call back to Holy Ground. The stable, rock-solid ground established for us by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. On Holy Ground there is no sin, there is no death. There have been many “ground zeros” and I suspect there will be many more. But there is only one Holy Ground. There is only one way to get there. God is calling us. Through the smoke and death and devastation God shouts to us, getting our attention. Now that the smoke and rubble have been cleared, we’re tempted to say that God’s call is gone, too. But God still calls. He is calling you and me. He is calling us away from ground zero and the death that will forever surround it. He is calling us to Holy Ground where there is life and peace in His Son Jesus Christ.

God is calling you. Will you answer? I pray that you will turn from ground zero to God’s Holy Ground, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Don't Count On It!

About 10 years ago, I was talking with a long-time member of the parish I was serving about the school ministry of that parish. I was explaining about the several different ideas I and the other members of the school board were bantering about in regards to moving forward with our school and school ministry.

He said something to the effect that we don’t really need to worry all that much about the school. It was celebrating its 110 anniversary and will pretty much always be there!

10 years and two parishes later I still cringe upon remembering that conversation.

Don’t count on it! Just because a ministry, a school, or a church has been around “forever” doesn’t mean it will be.

Just ask …

    Ephesus

Smyrna

Pergamum

Thyatira

Sardis

Philadelphia

Laodicea

I don’t think it is wise to count on something to last just because it has been around for a long time.

Jesus said to not worry about tomorrow. That’s true. In a way, Jesus was saying, “Live for today, not for tomorrow.”

I’ve been asking myself this week what I can do today in the Kingdom of God. I’ve been trying harder to focus on receiving and using my daily bread.

I have been reminding myself that I cannot count on the accomplishments or blessings of the past. I love the past, I love history, I love reading about it and learning from it. But I will not count on it as a substitute for using God’s daily bread. God’s mercies are new every morning for this very reason, I think.

Relationship and the True Man

Women are comfortable with relationships. Men, not so much.

Women have “girlfriends.” They get together to talk over coffee or tea. They go shopping together. They buy shoes together. They scrapbook together. They call each other on the phone and talk for hours.

Men do NOT have boyfriends. It just doesn’t happen that way. We have “man caves” – we like to be alone. We are more at-home sitting by ourselves watching “the game” in our underwear. We like it when we don’t have to say “excuse me” and can expel gas and pick our noses without upsetting the women-folk. (Maybe I’m revealing too much personal information here!)

To sum up, women are made for relationships, men are made to be rugged individualists.

Oh really? The oldest collection of writings in the world tell us something different.

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." – Genesis 2:18

Men and women were created to be in relationships. We were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26) and part of the image of God is that He is in relationship (Trinity) with the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The 21st Century man has a hard time with “relationships” because the word has become entangled with scrapbooking, shopping, being open and sharing feelings – all of which make men uncomfortable.

But when we learn that relationship is really about not being alone, that relationship is about support, help, strength, purpose, and adventure – I think men can accept this concept as vitally important to who we are as men.

What do you think? Add your comments to this!

Experiencing Death

I was in high school when I first “experienced” death. A young man in my school was hit by a car and killed. I had known him, but not well. We went to a Who concert once and shared musical tastes. I was sad that he had died. But I didn’t know what to do with that sadness.

That would be only the first of many experiences with death. My maternal grandfather died while I was in high school, my paternal grandfather died during my first year of seminary. My cousin (also hit by a car) also died when I was a seminary student. And my maternal grandmother died after I had been a parish pastor for two years.

Being a parish pastor now for 17 years, I’ve experienced death quite a lot. I’ve presided or assisted at well over 200 funerals. I’ve prayed and cried with families and watched as a son, daughter, mother, father, or grandparent closed their eyes for the last time. I’ve held the hand of a brother pastor as he drew his last, labored breath. The hardest death was that of a four year old who died in a farming accident. He wasn’t a member of my parish, but his pastor was overseas on a mission trip. What made it hard was that he was the same age as my youngest son at the time and looked a lot like him.

Death is hard on the living. It seems to be easier for some who are dying. Recently I was making regular visits with a woman who was dying of a brain tumor. She constantly told me that she was ready to die. She would miss her family and husband – very much! But was more than ready to go to heaven and be with her Lord and Savior Jesus. She even exhibited a little impatience toward the end, she was that ready.

But the death of someone we love is hard on us. I’ve counseled parents, trying to comfort them in their grief, that while a parent is not built to bury their own children, we have a God who knows exactly what they are going through. And God not only knows how they feel, He actually does something about it!

God doesn’t abolish death, but rather transforms it by defeating it!

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became of human being in order to defeat death. He defeated death by dying Himself for the sins of all the world for all time. Sure and certain defeat came through the supreme victory of His glorious resurrection from the dead. Jesus died once and for all and He will never die again.

And neither will those who have faith in Jesus! Holy Baptism is when a person is baptized in the death and resurrection of Jesus. If we have been united with Jesus in a death like His (through baptism) we can be absolutely assured that we will be united with Jesus in a resurrection like His!

So how should we look at death today? This is very much at the forefront of my thinking most mornings because I wake up to this view: 

Is this a field of dead people? Well, that’s one way of looking at it. But I prefer to look at this view as Martin Luther did.

“When we die, this does not really mean death but seed sown for the coming summer. And the cemetery does not indicate a heap of the dead, but a field full of kernels, known as God’s kernels, which will verdantly blossom forth again and grow more beautifully than can be imagined.” [Martin Luther, Lectures on 1 Timothy, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works 28, (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 28:178.]

A field awaiting the final harvest. Death is not the end. It is a sowing of a crop that will be harvested by angels on the last day, at the last trumpet sound!

Yes, death is a sad thing. But for me and for many, many Christians it is not a devastating thing. It is a transformation from this life of tears, fears and sorrows to the eternal life with Jesus where there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, and no more death.

D-Day +24,836

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened, he will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man to man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our home fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.

The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to victory!

I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory!

Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

– Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

68 years ago, on June 6, 1944, 156,000 Allied soldiers – the bulk of which were made up of American and British forces – made amphibious and air landings on Normandy, France. Their task was to drive German forces away from the shore in order to obtain a foothold in Europe from which to win back Europe from Nazi, Germany.

Movies such as “The Longest day” and “Saving Private Ryan,” and TV shows such as “Band of Brothers” have brought the stories of D-Day to my generation.
But movies and such can only convey so much truth. There are very, very few people today who were actually there to tell their story of D-Day. The number grows smaller every day. In this regard we can be thankful for the movies, TV shows and books in order to keep the story alive so that we can never forget.
And we should not forget. Not because so many heroic things were done during the war. And certainly not because war is glamorous or a glorious adventure.

No, we should never forget for at least two reasons. One, men and women sacrificed themselves for a cause greater than themselves. Men like my grandfather who would survive D-Day and men like my great uncle who died on Iwo Jima. Whether we agree or not with why they fought in war, we should not forget their honor, their integrity, nor their sacrifice. The second reason we should not forget is so that we understand what war is all about. It is not something to be entered into lightly or inadvisdedly.

It has been said that war is hell. But is that true?

Here’s a quote from the M*A*S*H TV series (written by Burt Prelutsky):

Hawkeye: War isn’t hell. War is war and hell is hell, and of the two war is a lot worse.

Father Mulcahy: How do you figure that, Hawkeye?

Hawkeye: Simple, father. Tell me, who goes to hell?

Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.

Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in hell. But war is chock full of them. Little kids, cripples, old ladies, in fact, except for a few of the brass almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.

War is ugly. War is dirty. It is not an adventure to be sought out, but rather sometimes a necessary fight to overcome evil. I believe it is to be avoided if at all possible. But I also believe that sometimes it cannot be avoided.

No, war is not hell. But as bad as it is, war is not as bad as hell, because all wars come to an end eventually. Hell goes on for eternity.

But like Hawkeye says, there are no innocents in hell.

In fact, there doesn’t have to be any human in hell. It can be avoided. There is a way out. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born, lived, died, rose again and ascended to save every human being from sin, death (hell), and the power of the devil (for whom hell was created in the first place).

As we remember the men and women who sacrificed 68 years ago on what was called “D-Day” – let us also remember that Jesus Christ sacrificed Himself for us on the cross to save us from our sins.

The True Man - King

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

-          Henry V, William Shakespeare

A king rallies his troops. He draws around himself a “band of brothers.” He has entered the season of the King!

The king is a leader. He’s a mentor. He is in a position to pass along what he has learned in all the previous seasons.

The Season of the King will be successful – as all the previous seasons – as we soak in what the other seasons give us. We cannot skip over to the Season of the King as it is a time to pass on what we know and have learned. If we haven’t learned it, then we can’t really pass it on.

Some thoughts on a “Band of Brothers.”

The HBO mini-series “Band of Brothers” is a great example of men in the Season of Warrior. However, the film Henry V fits so very well to exemplify this Season of the King. But having mentioned “Band of Brothers” I must say some more about it. If you’ve seen the series or read the book, you know that the men of E Company, 506^th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101^st Airborne Division were truly a “Band of Brothers” brought together by war. As Stephen Ambrose writes, they “came from different backgrounds, different parts of the country. They were farmers and coal miners, mountain men and sons of the Deep South. Some were desperately poor, others from the middle class. One came from Harvard, one from Yale, a couple from UCLA…. They came together in the summer of 1942, by which time the Europeans had been at war for three years. By the late spring of 1944, they had become an elite company of airborne light infantry.” When the war ended in Europe in 1945, they anticipated being shipped to the Pacific Theater, but in August of 1945, the war came to an end. “The job completed, the company disbanded, the men went home.”

This “band of brothers” was made of up officers and enlisted men, certainly, but they were equals. They were not really “mentored” in the way that we are talking about in the Season of the King. And I use Easy Company to illustrate that the concept of a “band of brothers” must be understood as temporary. Vitally important, but still temporary. A “band of brothers” is formed to get a job done, to complete a quest. It isn’t meant to be a life-long fellowship like marriage is. Easy Company went through terrible times together. But when the war ended, they went their separate ways, for the most part.

In Henry V, King Harry calls his men a “band of brothers.” Again, this was a temporary group. They were together to fight a battle. Only as a band of brothers would they have any hope of survival (and even then it wasn’t guaranteed). Only as a band of brothers would they have any hope of victory – which is exactly what happened at Agincourt.

But those men, those happy few, that “band of brothers” illustrate the important point of the Season of the King. Mentoring. The man who enters the Season of the King enters to mentor. The Season of the King brings together a “band of brothers.” The man in the Season of the King passes on vitally important information and advice.

A King leads. It’s as simple as that. But there’s nothing simple about it. As Americans, we have no direct experience of a king. Truly there haven’t been real kings for a long time. Our examples today now come from movies and history. Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, David in 1 & 2 Samuel. But those are two very good examples of the Season of the King.

When I was a fourth-year seminary student, I thought I knew it all, I thought I was ready for it all. The summer I was ordained, I was installed as a pastor in a very small parish in rural Michigan. I knew it was temporary, as I told my friends that I would be District President by the time I was 35 and Synodical President by the time I was 50. I was cautioned, however, that “a man should not seek the office, but the office should seek the man.” Now, 17 years later, I have no aspirations for either of those two offices or any others. I am content with being an Assistant Pastor on a wonderful ministry team. I am content with being a husband and father. God has a way of putting you in the positions where you will have the most influence!

It is said that when Augustine was made Bishop of Hippo he wept because he felt so inadequate for the job.

The Season of the King must be lived before it can be reached. By that I mean that we must live the character of a king before we can actually be a king. If by some freak accident of nature I had become District President at age 35, I would have destroyed that district! As it is, I’m so very thankful that God doesn’t let me damage the parishes I served as pastor too much simply because I was still learning about this Season of the King.

If young men are going to have any hope of becoming a True Man of God in this world, they will need a mentor.

Howard Hendricks’ classic speech, “A Mandate for Mentoring” makes the point that every man needs a Paul, a Barnabas, and a Timothy. In other words, a man to mentor him, a man to encourage him, and a man whom he can mentor. Any man who becomes a father automatically has a “Timothy” given to him. It’s a ready-made, God-made, mentoring relationship.

But we can also mentor in other ways:

            Being a Bible class leader for young men or teens

            Being a little league coach

            At work with your staff or even less-experienced co-workers

Keys to being a mentor:

-          Don’t just assume that you can be a mentor because you’ve had experience in some area. A mentor relationship is based on trust and trust has to be earned.

-          Don’t skip over the other seasons of life to become a mentor. You could be a mentor to a cowboy if you are in a later season, but the best mentor will be one who has successfully navigated life to get to the Season of the King.

-          Know that a mentor is a temporary thing. As a mentor, you are guiding someone younger or less experienced than you through seasons that you yourself have already gone through. But once they are ready to move on to a new season, you’re role as mentor can come to an end.

True Man - Lover

The lover stage is set up by the Warrior stage because in love we also must “fight” – work hard, not think of ourselves, put effort (a lot of effort) in our relationship with our wives.

If we’ve gone through the stages as God intended, by the time we get to the “lover” stage, we should be ready for this unique and challenging season.

To be a lover as God intends us to be, we need to have soaked in all that God would have us in both the Cowboy stage (read about that here) and the Warrior stage (read about that here).

In the season of the Cowboy we learn to take risks, have fun and adventures that will help us grow spiritually as well as physically. In the season of the Warrior, we are trained to fight the battles that come our way because we are threats to the “prince of this world” (Satan).

There are many men who rush to the lover stage right out of boyhood. They are prepared physically but not even close to being prepared mentally or emotionally. That kind of preparation only comes with going through the seasons of cowboy and warrior.

John Eldredge makes a great point in Wild at Heart:
Just as every little boy is asking one question, every little girl is, as well. But her question isn’t so much about her strength. No, the deep cry of a little girl’s heart is am I lovely? Every woman needs to know that she is exquisite and exotic and chosen. This is core to her identity, the way she bears the image of God. Will you pursue me? Do you delight in me? Will you fight for me? And like every little boy, she has taken a wound as well…. A little girl looks to her father to know if she is lovely…. So many unloved women turn to boys to try to hear what they never heard from their father. [Wild at Heart, John Eldredge, page 183]

He talks about wounds that are received by boys and girls from their fathers. The wound for a boy is “You don’t have what it takes to be a man.” The wound for a girl is “You are not captivating enough for my love.” When a girl doesn’t get that question answered by her own father, then she goes looking for the answer in another male.

She will go to another man and give anything she can to hear that she is loved. And a man who has not soaked in the cowboy and warrior seasons will take advantage of that – perhaps thinking, naively enough, that it is his right.

To help understand this, let me tell you a little bit about two girls that I once taught in a seventh and eighth grade religion class.

One is abused by her mother. Grandmother is suing for custody but they don’t get along (because she is too strict).

One doesn’t know who her biological father is. Her step-father is gay, was incarcerated for several years but is now out of jail and wanting to get back into his step-daughter’s life.

Both were dating guys in a True Young Men’s group I was leading at the time. I worked with them to try to help them understand that these girls were taking their question to them and the distinct possibility is that they would do anything for these guys to get a positive answer to “Am I lovely? Am I worth fighting for?” Anything.

The Season of the Lover demands us to fight for love. To be a lover-warrior. We’ll need to know how to be a warrior from the Season of the Warrior. We will seek the adventure of love within the boundaries that God intended (marriage) because we have been trained for adventure in the Season of the Cowboy.

For men who are not married (but hope to be someday): Your future spouse has been chosen for you by God. From the day she was born, she was intended by God for you. This is His daughter. He will present her to you when you are ready – that is what He intends. As such – the daughter of God – she deserves your purity, your integrity, and your love and desire. Develop all that by living through the Seasons as God intends.

For those who are married: your wife – again as a daughter of God – deserves your protection. Her honor is in your hands. Fight for her. Don’t let anything get in the way, don’t let anything take her away. Which includes: work. The internet. Drink. Sports. “The guys.” You get the picture.

The Season of the Lover is important because it is through love that we truly begin to understand our God. 1 John 4:16 tells us that “God is love.” One of the most popular ways to express love is through poetry. However, poetry isn’t exactly the most masculine of things – at least the way we think of poetry in this day and age. But if we can just get beyond the strange cadence and all that rhyming and get to the meat that lies underneath, we’ll begin to understand the language of this season.

Now, I’m not saying we all need to go out and buy a book of poems and make that our evening reading assignments. Some guys get poetry and some don’t. God knows I’ve tried but I just haven’t found it yet (however, I’m limited in my experience at this point).

But think about this for a moment. In the Old Testament, who would you consider to be the epitome of a man – a real man’s man? If you said King David you’re tuned right in to me. Here was a guy who could kill a lion or bear with his hands, maybe a sling at the most. He faced a nine-foot-tall warrior with just a sling and a stone. He spent fourteen years on the run from a king he loved but who wanted to kill him. He was the successful soldier of who it was said, “Saul kills his thousands, but David his tens of thousands.” This is a man.

But he would be more accurately called Israel’s Warrior-Poet. He wrote poetry! And do you know what his favorite subject was? His love of God!

Take a few minutes to reflect on some of the poetry of David and as you read through these, jot down some notes about the relationship with God that David’s poetry presents.

Psalms
36:8
4:7
6:6
16:11
42:1
63:1
63:3
27:4