Twenty-four years ago Judith and I were living three short blocks south of the Twin Towers in Downtown Manhattan. We had awakened on Tuesday morning, September 11 to clear blue skies and the sparkling waters of New York Harbor. But it was not to last.
We felt the shock in our building when the first tower was hit from the north. We heard the scream of the second jet flying low overhead and what sounded like a sonic boom when the south tower was hit. We experienced the shaking of our apartment building, similar to that of an earthquake, and the midnight darkness when the first tower collapsed. We saw the dust, the ash and the paper on the streets and felt the eerie silence when we were later able to leave our building. Lower Manhattan was like a moonscape. A great evil occurred that day.
Twenty-four years on it is easy to put aside the hideous, evil acts that cut short the lives of people going about their daily affairs. It’s easy to forget that commercial airliners were used as missiles to crash into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. A further flight intended for more destruction was thwarted by the selfless heroic efforts of passengers. People on that flight prayed the Lord’s Prayer as the plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Over three thousand men and women died that day.
In his address to the nation that evening, George W. Bush, then President, called for prayers for all who had lost loved ones. He continued: And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.”
In the Wall Street Bible talks I was giving at the time, I spoke on Psalm 46 which begins: God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.
Creation in turmoil. It can never be said that the Bible knows nothing about catastrophic events – and not least human evil and its devastating effects on this world. Indeed, the Psalm introduces a theme we overlook today – namely, the ultimate dissolution of the present world order by its Creator. God continues his work even in the midst of the chaos. God’s supremacy and presence with his people is never thwarted. He alone is our security and strength.
The larger biblical epic records the intrusion of evil into God’s good creation in Genesis chapter 3. God didn’t create evil, but because he didn’t make us robots, he allowed it. However, as the biblical narrative unfolds, we become aware of the reality and the depth of wickedness.
As a side note, if we insist we’re here by chance and are nothing but atoms in an ordered cohesion bumping around in time and space, evil and suffering have no meaning for there is no transcendental moral compass.
The opening lines of Psalm 46 speak of the unchanging God who is our refuge and strength. In him alone we find a secure shelter and the power within to address any situation. Indeed, verses 2 and 3 exhort us not to fear, even if the world around us is undone, for God remains supreme over every facet of his creation – the earth, the mountains, and the seas.
Humanity in turmoil. Psalm 46 moves from the upheaval of the material world to human turmoil. There is a river, whose streams make glad the city of God….God is the midst of the city; it will not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.
Derek Kidner comments that ‘the city of God is one of the great themes of the Old Testament … God’s choice of Zion, or Jerusalem, had been as striking as his choice of David, and the wonder of it keeps breaking through’ (Kidner, Psalms, Vol.1, p.175). We also find glimpses anticipating the New Testament vision of the heavenly Jerusalem as the community of God’s people rather than as a place (Ps.48:2).
Verse 6 speaks of the instability of evil and human tumult: The nations are in uproar, the kingdoms totter… However, God has the last word for when he utters his voice, the earth melts. Verse 7 is so reassuring: The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
The Lord of hosts points to the mighty armies of heaven to which Jesus alluded when he was arrested (Matthew 26:53). Refuge, a different to word to verse 1, speaks of an ‘inaccessible height’ which the New English Bible translates as our high stronghold.
Be still! Verses 8 and 9 are an invitation to catch the vision of God’s ultimate intention – to make wars to cease to the end of the earth. It is a picture of the perfect peace that will follow on the other side of God’s judgement – the accounting that precedes the perfect righteousness of the new heaven and the new earth (2 Peter 3:12f).
The command “Be still” is not so much a word of comfort to God’s people under duress but a command to every nation. Jesus’s word to the turbulent winds and waters, “Peace. Be still” display the power of God’s Word. Mind-bending though the idea is, at God’s command the nations will be called to order, confronted by God’s supreme and glorious power: “Know that I am God! I will be exalted among the nations … and in the earth” (46:10).
In the closing words, the confidence in God in verse 1 returns with greater power: The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge – our high stronghold! The death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ confirm the truth and trustworthiness of these words.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 twenty-four years ago, churches were filled as many looked for comfort and hope. Some turned to the risen Lord Jesus Christ for the first time.
As we reflect on these events twenty-four years on, will you join with me in praying for the nations, especially that God might open blind eyes and unstop deaf ears, turning hard hearts towards their true home in Christ?
It’s worth noting the words of Blaise Pascal, the 17th C French mathematician, physicist and philosopher: “Men and women despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is just to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good people wish it were true, and then show them that it is”.
Let me also encourage you to purchase copies of my book, The Jesus Story: Seven Signs – one to refresh your own faith in Christ as well as copies to pass on to others. Use the link in the banner below if you are in the US. If you are outside the US copies can be purchased through Amazon.
Prayer. We commend to your fatherly care, merciful God, all those who in this passing world are in any kind of trouble, sorrow, sickness, anxiety or need, especially we pray for… Give them patience and confidence in your goodness, and in your mercy provide their every need. Father, hear our prayer, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
We praise your name for all your servants in whose life and death Christ has been honored. Grant that, encouraged by the good examples of their lives, we may run the race that is set before us, and with them share the fullness of joy at your right hand; through Christ who is the pioneer and perfecter of faith. Amen.
