As a Christian who has grown in his understanding of The Gospel and the world we live in over the last 11 years I can honestly say that September 11th was more about the reality of the human condition than it was about terrorism or government conspiracies. It’s easy to say it’s us vs. them, it’s easy to blame and feel better about ourselves… it’s much more difficult to take ownership of brokenness that we all have in common as people and grieve for our enemies as well as our country. It’s easier for me to imagine a God who would give his life for the victims in the tower but much harder to imagine that he would do the same for the pilots of the plane. Honestly though I see this same war of good and evil going on my heart everyday and wonder why God would ever love me. He does though and today I think my hope is directed more toward the Middle East than ever. God loves them.
“Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you. How? you ask. In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God. Companions as we are in this work with you, we beg you, please don’t squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us. God reminds us, I heard your call in the nick of time; The day you needed me, I was there to help. Well, now is the right time to listen, the day to be helped.” (2 Corinthians 5:16–6:2, The Message)
When God gave me the insight to listen to this, “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing”, it made me appreciate all humanity. Good, bad, ugly. God loves them alright. He’s the one that gives us our value and it is incalculable because of Christ.