Those living on September 11, 2001 will never forget that day.
As an 18 year-old college student, I came downstairs on that Tuesday morning to see my friends huddled around the TV in disbelief. We all quietly watched the horrific images of the World Trade towers falling and the fires at the Pentagon billowing.
The following weeks and months were full of collective shock, grief, anger and fear. Personally, 9/11 marked the end of my adolescence. The painful and sobering lesson of that day was that the world held both good and evil; peace and war; joy and grief. That day is a day I will never forget.
Upon the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the question both for individuals and our nation becomes not if we will remember 9/11 but how we remember 9/11.
Remembering by visiting the 9/11 Memorial
One way to remember is to visit the 9/11 Memorial Museum. This museum’s place within the existing foundation, or as the museum website described as the “the bowels,” of the former World Trade Center towers. The site itself is deeply meaningful because the visitor descends into the “vast cavity” of where the towers once stood in order to experience the darkness and horror of that day.
It’s a literal descent as an escalator takes you down to the museum/archaeological site. There you can see and touch the vast retaining walls that hold back the Hudson River, the mess of mangled steel, and the fragments of the mechanical systems that serviced the two towers, each with 90 plus stories, above.
The descent to the dark and eerie bedrock of the former World Trade Center naturally leads your soul to grapple with the horror and darkness of 9/11 when the Twin Towers fell. There is a purposeful disorientation that one experiences while there: no windows or sunlight, no clear way to exit, no clear path. The disorientation of the museum provokes the disorientation those in the World Trade towers must have felt that day.
The figurative descent continues as you visit the ‘In Memoriam’ exhibit. This small room is lined with the pictures of the 2,977 people who died on 9/11. Their birth dates range over decades but the day they died is all the same. No longer are the victims just a statistic, but looking at all the pictures provokes the overwhelming sorrow that comes when you can literally picture the victims of evil.
While visiting the museum, as I did in 2017, is incredibly helpful in learning and wrestling with the history of that day. However, the deeper questions remained: Why does such evil exist in the world? Will there be justice for the victims? What does this mean for America? How can I find hope in light of such a tragedy?
The answers to those questions are not found in a museum. Rather, those questions are only answered through a theological view of history.
Remembering 9/11 theologically
Andrew Wilson, at a recent conference in the UK, spoke on how to view all events in history by what he calls, ‘Theological History’ by which we look at history through the lens of who God is. Put another way, we “make sense of all that has happened,” he said, by our theological understanding of God.
So if history is His story, how can we make sense of 9/11 by what we know to be true of God?
While this list is certainly not conclusive, I believe these theological lessons are helpful in helping to make sense of 9/11:
1. Evil exists in the world, yet the resurrection of Jesus proves that evil will not prevail.
Americans’ view of the world changed on 9/11. The terror of that day did not just affect those in New York City, Pennsylvania or Washington D.C; it terrorized all Americans who wondered if the next attack would suddenly be in their city or at their work. A generation of Americans, who themselves had not known war, suddenly had to confront evil for the first time.
The Bible informs us that evil was unleashed into the world as man and woman sinned against God by eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Since that day, sin and evil continue to permeate our world. 9/11 is another brutal example of how we live in a broken world where violence, terror and evil exist. However, the Bible also accounts of how God’s grace and love for the world intervenes, as He sent His Son Jesus, so that evil can be conquered.
Upon the cross, it looked like evil had won as “darkness was over the whole land” (Mark 15:33) as Jesus died. On the third day, however, Christ rose from the grave and His resurrection proves that evil will ultimately not win. For those most affected by the evil of 9/11 and for the many, like me, who confronted evil for the first time on 9/11, the resurrection is the hope that God will bring good from evil and life out of death.
2. Every human is victimized by sin; Jesus offers true sympathy.
Part of the senselessness of 9/11 is how many innocent victims died. Thousands of people showed up for work or boarded a flight and never returned home.
In a fallen, post Genesis 3 world, the Bible makes it very clear that every human will be victimized by sin. Tragically, the 9/11 terrorist attack was another example how man’s sins lead to murder. While that is a bleak reality, there is hope in the suffering Savior Jesus who knows exactly what it is to be victimized by sin (although He was the only man in history to be completely innocent).
Upon the cross, Jesus experienced the painful effects of humanity’s sin perpetrated upon Him. As He hung naked on a cross, He was mocked, wrongfully accused, beaten, betrayed, scorned and was ultimately murdered at the hands of men. For the families of 9/11 victims and for the millions of people who are looking for answers and comfort to senseless violence, Jesus, the great High Priest is able to be with, sympathize, and minister, as one who endured the same pain (Heb. 4:15).
3. Towers will fall in this world; God’s grace offers the ability to not perish.
In trying to make sense of 9/11 many ask, “How could God let this happen?” Others, who are trying to make conclusions about why those in the Twin Towers died, would ask, “What did they do to deserve that?”
Jesus faced similar questions as we walked on earth. In Luke 13, Jesus answered a question from people looking for explanations to tragedies by citing an example of a tower falling in Siloam to prove His point: “‘Those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish’” (v. 4-5)”
The Lord made it clear that men should not draw conclusions about why some people died in towers. Rather, Jesus calls each person to look at the tragic events of the world to see that tomorrow is not guaranteed and to respond by hastily repenting to God so that they will not perish in eternity.
Theologian and pastor, R.C. Sproul, reflecting on this Scripture, wrote, “We should not be amazed by the justice of God but by the grace of God. When anything painful, sorrowful, or grievous befalls us, it is never an act of injustice on God’s part, because God does not owe us freedom from tragedies. He does not owe us protection from falling towers. We are debtors to God and cannot repay. Our only hope to avoid perishing at the hands of God is repentance.”
In conclusion
Twenty years after 9/11, there are still many questions to ask about that day. Through His story, we can remember the history of September 11th and find what we are ultimately looking for in the rubble of 9/11— a Savior who provides hope. That is how we should remember 9/11.