Remembering September 11: Twenty-Five Years Later

 

A commemoration for the people of God

Twenty-five years have passed since the morning of September 11, 2001. For many, the images remain as clear as yesterday: the towers, the Pentagon, the field in Shanksville, the smoke against a blue September sky. Nearly three thousand souls were taken in a single morning. Fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, firefighters, police officers, office workers, passengers who chose to act rather than yield. Time has not erased the wound. It has only asked us what we will do with the memory.

Scripture never treats remembrance as optional. Israel was commanded to remember the Lord’s works and the nation’s sins alike, so that neither pride nor forgetfulness would rule the heart. “Blessed be the Lord my strength… my goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer” (Psalm 144:1–2). On this anniversary we remember both the evil that was done and the God who remains our refuge.

Evil is not a metaphor. That morning revealed what fallen men will do when hatred is baptized as a cause. The Bible is not surprised by such wickedness. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). We do not honor the dead by pretending the attack was a misunderstanding. We honor them by telling the truth: innocent blood was shed, and the Judge of all the earth saw it.

Yet remembrance without hope becomes either bitterness or mere ceremony. The believer looks through the smoke to the throne. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed” (Psalm 46:1–2). Many who ran toward the fire that day did so out of duty and love of neighbor. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). We give thanks for first responders, for ordinary passengers who resisted, and for every quiet act of courage that followed in the months and years after.

Twenty-five years also call the church to examine itself. National calamity is not always the direct judgment of a particular sin, but it is never outside the sovereignty of God. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven” (2 Chronicles 7:14). The proper Christian response is not panic, nor political rage as a substitute for holiness. It is repentance where we have grown cold, prayer for those who still grieve, and a settled trust that Christ remains Lord of history.

Pray today for the families who still set an empty place at the table. Pray for those who carry wounds of body and mind from that morning and from the wars that followed. Pray for this nation—not as those who confuse the flag with the gospel, but as those who know that righteousness exalteth a nation, and that sin is a reproach to any people (Proverbs 14:34). And fix your hope where it belongs. Towers fall. Empires shake. The kingdom that cannot be moved remains (Hebrews 12:28).

We will not forget September 11. More than that, we will not forget the God who was there, who is here, and who will one day make all things new.

DMMC 

9-7-26