Introduction
We’re taking a little break from the letter of James this morning and we’ll pick up again next week.
As I’m sure you’ll have noticed in the media this week, exactly ten years have elapsed since the terrorist attacks in the United States; an event that both shocked and changed the world. Shortly after the attacks I heard an excellent Christian response from the Baptist minister David Pawson and so much of what he said then is still relevant today, so I'm using his talk as the inspration for much of this one with some new insights that could only have come with the passage of time.
In one decade, much has changed. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the alleged principal architect of the 9/11 attacks, is in custody awaiting trial. Osama Bin Laden, the figurehead of Al Qaida at the time of the attacks is dead. There have been controversial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the Arab Spring this year has shown that across the Muslim world people are choosing democratic rule and not global jihad as the means of advancing their interests.
And yet September 11th has become perhaps the most haunted date on the calendar. The mere mention of this date immediately brings to mind newsreels of a visibly horrified crowd watching a vast fire rage in the north tower of the World Trade Center, only to see another airliner slam into the south tower.
I expect everyone here this morning can remember where they were when they heard the news and watched TV reports about it. It was a pivotal event in world history and it still commands access to primetime viewing ten years on.
In the days and weeks following the tragedy, the media, politicians, philosophers and artists tried to find meaning in all this. Christians too. Many opened their Bibles and asked, “What was God doing that day?” And “If God is all powerful and perfectly loving, how can he have allowed something so dreadful to happen?”
These questions are not new, of course, but in the aftermath of September 11th 2001 they were raised again with a new intensity. Some Christians raised another question. “Does God have something to say to us through this disaster?”
And I think, even ten years on, three themes stand out; things that were written down in Scripture long ago but still speak with resonance and authority now at times like this. And I’m going to take them in turn.
1) The Tower of Babel – Pride and Prestige
I think, first of all, that God speaks into the issue of human pride. What vanity is this competition to construct iconic skyscrapers that rise ever higher! The World Trade Center measured 527m high (including the antenna of the north tower). The Sears Building in Chicago surpassed it soon after, but the twin towers were the tallest building in the world at the time of their inauguration. This construction was one expression of an ancient ambition to build the tallest structure on earth. The current record belongs to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which stands at 828m tall.
Where does this drive to build ever higher come from? Is it just that humankind likes an engineering challenge? That may be a factor but I think a big part of this aspiration is to do with the pride of the human heart - and its origins go back to the cradle of civilization. The first trace of it is found in the Bible, in Genesis 11.4 where men say, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves.”
Genesis 11 tells us that the project of building a tower that reached the heavens was essentially an expression of human arrogance. That is to say the tower of Babel was not a building designed and built to the glory of God, as cathedrals in the Middle Ages were. The Tower of Babel was rather an icon of human prestige. It was a monument to the glory and greatness of man.
At the end of the 19th century the New York skyline was dominated by church steeples, which honoured God, pointing to the heavens.
But the 20th century saw a renaissance of the Babel aspiration - and the World Trade Center was part of that drive. Today it is almost impossible to see one church steeple on the Manhattan horizon, overwhelmed as they all are by these buildings erected to the glory of man.
Of all these skyscrapers, the twin towers were perhaps especially symbolic and representative of the confidence that people place in money, in wealth, in the projection of their own importance.
Listen to the words of its architect Minoru Yamasaki (who, believe it or not, had a fear of heights). “The World Trade Center should, because of its importance, become a representation of man’s belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and through cooperation, his ability to find greatness."
That the World Trade Center was such a spectacular monument to human pride is perhaps one reason why God allowed this attack.
I do not mean to say that God was the author of the tragedy of 9/11, and please don’t hear that. Let me be quite clear that God is never the instigator of evil and the Bible says he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, let alone the innocent.
But God’s word says repeatedly that “He gives grace to the humble and resists the proud.” Pride is the worst sin of all according to God, for it lies at the root of all sin.
Sometimes pride and human arrogance peak so alarmingly that God permits a sobering corrective before even more damage is done. That is the message of Genesis 11 and the tower of Babel. Think how human confidence in the greatness of man was shaken when the Titanic, a ship that God himself could not sink, plunged to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean on its maiden voyage. The collapse of the twin towers constructed to the glory of man had a similar effect. “God gives grace to the humble and resists the proud.”
In the late 20th Century there was a dizzy euphoria amongst bankers, financiers and entrepreneurs, who imagined that they could create prosperity at will.
But listen to what God says in Deuteronomy 8.17; “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth…”
It’s very moving to read the testimonies of those who survived the attacks on the World Trade Center, as we have had opportunity to do this week again.
9/11 happened when I was ministering in an international church in Paris. One member of that church, JFR, lost his first wife on Pan Am flight 103 that exploded over Lockerbie in December 1988. He married again and in September 2001 his second wife was working in New York – in the World Trade Center. She was driving to work that morning and was just about to descend into the underground car park at 8:46am when she heard a noise, looked up and watched the first plane hit the north tower. She backed up and thought “I’m not going to work today.” These events had a profound effect on JFR and many others directly affected by the attacks. They changed his value system because they forced him to re-evaluate what is important in life and what is not.
One international banker who survived, but whose close colleagues perished, gave up his career in high finance saying “I’ll never again live for the pursuit of material things.”
God’s word speaks to us with clarity and insight about what matters in life and what doesn’t. The Bible shows how ephemeral, how vapour-like, wealth is. Mammon promises more than it delivers and the pursuit of money (symbolised if you like by the World Trade Centre) is vain.
2) The Fall of Babylon – Reminder of Ultimate Reality
In the weeks that followed September 11th 2001, several Christian websites and magazines asked the question: “Is this the beginning of the end of the world?”
Why did they ask that? Was it because the sight of New York City engulfed in smoke looked like a scene from an apocalyptic disaster film? Possibly.
But most of the fuel for those questions came from the fact that the description the fall of Babylon at the end of time in the book of Revelation bears a startling resemblance to what happened in New York.
David Wilkerson, author of The Cross and the Switchblade, and the then pastor of Times Square Church, one of the churches closest to the disaster, told about a reporter who said on TV “In just one hour these symbols of great wealth have been totally brought to ruin.” And Wilkerson remarked at once that the journalist quoted the Bible almost word-for-word without knowing it.
In Revelation 17-18 there is a description of a great city built by the sea. This city, is codenamed as Babylon. We know it’s a symbolic name because in reality Babylon is nowhere near the sea. The city is personified as a prostitute because the two great vices there are money and gaudy pleasure. Prostitution of course brings those two things together. This Babylon is also a global exporter of godless culture and values and it’s a center of world trade. The prophecy of Revelation 18.19 states that it will be destroyed in just 60 minutes.
“Woe! Woe to you, great city, where all who had ships on the sea became rich through her wealth! In one hour she has been brought to ruin!”
I remember thinking about that passage at the time of the attacks and wondering if this was indeed the beginning of Armageddon. It sent a shiver down my spine.
It is clear now with 10 years’ hindsight that September 11th 2001 was not the end of the world. But I believe it was an anticipation or prefiguring of it for those who have ears to hear.
In the last days a global figure the Bible calls the Antichrist will pursue and persecute all who are faithful to Christ. It will be heavy and persistent - but brief. Today, says the first letter of John, there are many ‘antichrists’ who attack believers on a local level so where we see persecution of believers it’s a prefiguring, if you like, of what’s to come. Many antichrists now. The Antichrist at the end.
In other words, what will happen at the end of the world, we already experience now in miniature. September 11th 2001 saw the demise in one hour of a World Trade Center in a city of money and pleasure. But the demise in one hour of the global centre of trade, of money and of gaudy pleasure will surely come at the end. We’ve already seen it in miniature. And it is frightening.
The warnings about the end of the world in the Bible are not given to arouse our curiosity or to fascinate our imagination but to concentrate our minds on getting our lives right with God. And so to my third point.
3) The Tower of Siloam - Call to Repentance
The last point I want to make comes from our second reading.
September 11th 2001 serves as a sober and stark reminder that our life here is the only opportunity we get to seek God and to accept the salvation he offers freely in Jesus Christ.
Life can be brief. But, however long we have to live, we will all face our Judge at the end of it. How prepared would we be if, like the 2,979 poor souls who perished on 9/11, our days were suddenly cut short and we faced Almighty God tonight?
The week following the attacks of September 11th 2001, people asked, “Why did God allow so much suffering to those innocent victims?” “It’s so random. Why did some survive and others perish?”
It’s a matter people asked Jesus to comment on in Luke 13. And I think it’s worth reading it again.
“Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them - do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.’”
Jesus refers here to two separate disasters: the first was an act of violence and the second was the collapse of a tower that led to people dying.
The first atrocity was committed by Pontius Pilate and it seems to have been an act of state terrorism if you like. He murdered in cold blood a group of ‘innocent’ Galileans who had committed no other offence than gather together for Sabbath worship. It was a brutal act that was totally unjustified. Not only did it senselessly end the lives of these men, it insulted and defiled their religion.
The second disaster was the collapse of a tower in Siloam. The fall of this building crushed and killed a random group of people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe the architecture was flawed or the construction was poor. We don’t really know the reason why it fell. But it did fall and people died.
Two different events but Jesus asks the same question about both. Was it because the Galileans were worse sinners than everybody else that Pilate singled them out? Were the victims of the collapse of the tower guiltier than those who survived?”
In both cases, Jesus says, “No, they were no worse than anyone else. But unless you repent,” he says, “you too will all perish.”
Dying without accepting the salvation God graciously offers us will be worse than the foretaste of the hell we all had on 9/11.
Jesus says something very unpalatable here to modern ears. He is pointing out that everyone shares, not a collective innocence, but a common guilt.
Yes, of course it’s true that the victims of the attacks were innocent compared with the hijackers. They were ordinary people like you and me - and it’s heartbreaking that so many of them had to suffer such a harrowing end.
But I’ve got to be honest with what I read here; The Lord Jesus did not direct his words to Pilate or to the architect of the tower in Siloam. He clearly said that if we do not repent, we will likewise perish.
The reason why that sounds so shocking to us is because the secular humanism of the Enlightenment preached the false gospel that everyone is basically good.
But the Bible says the truth about human nature: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And “the [human] heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
In other words, we are sinners by nature, and capable of good only by the grace and mercy of God.
I remember first reading this in the Bible and thinking “No, it can’t mean that!” And then I had children. I discovered that even young children tell lies and torment their siblings and defy authority and refuse to share. I discovered that in order for my children to tell the truth, live in peace with others, respect authority and share nicely Kathie and I had to break my back training them to adopt a different course than the one they instinctively chose. Then I discovered that my parents had the same issues with me – only I was worse. Then it hit me; this goes all the way back to the first man and woman. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
The tragedy of September 11th - even ten years on - sounds a wake-up call to repentance, not just for the citizens of New York City or the American people, but for the whole world, because none of us here today are more innocent than the victims of those atrocities were.
C.S. Lewis once said “God whispers in our pleasures but shouts in our pain.” And God does cry out to the world at times of crisis like this. Is anybody listening?
Ending
Despite the heavy tone of my talk today, I want to finish by saying that the gospel is good news not bad news.
The good news is that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
- If you’re not right with God this morning
- if you do not have the peace with him that he freely gives
- if you relate to the pride of the builders of the tower of Babel
- if you have bought into the values of Babylon (the city without God)
- if you’re tired of living outside God’s will for your life
Come humbly before him now, return to the Lord your God, and seek the forgiveness, the cleansing and the salvation that he so wants to give our broken world.
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 11th September 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment