Never Forget

I will never forget where I was 10 years ago. It was a Tuesday morning early in my junior year at Biola University, in the heart of Southern California. The phone rang just after 7 a.m. Being a college student with no morning classes, I wasn't really planning on getting up. Neither were my roommates.

Groggily, I answered the phone and it was a friend who used to go to school but now lived in San Jose. Breathless he screamed that the United States was being bombed. I could hardly believe it. As I started to come awake, I flipped on the TV. The first thing I saw shocked me, as a plane slammed into the World Trade Center and the towers collapsed. I quickly woke up my roomates and we stared at the screen not knowing what to do.

The rest of that morning was chaotic and terrifying. As the details continued to roll in, the destruction was vast. Then the real panic set in. 10 years later, it's easy to forget that, for a few hours following the first attacks, there were a number of planes that remained unaccounted for. In the chaos, many reports flooded in that they were bound for Los Angeles or Hollywood. Being on campus in Los Angeles County near John Wayne Airport, there was additional fear. Nothing happened, but chaos, fear, and sorrow ruled the day.

And the days that followed. I can remember spending the better part of the following week watching the near 24-hour a day coverage of the damage in New York and Washington. It didn't seem real, but it was sad and terrifying just the same.

It was the first real event like that in my memory. I can remember my mom describing the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I can remember my grandparents talking about Pearl Harbor Day. For me, and for those in my generation, Sept. 11, 2001 was the first time we'd experienced an event on that scale.

What makes me the most sad, as I think about it today, is the senseless loss of life. The sacrifice, not just of the victims, but of those that committed the senseless acts on behalf of a false God and a false cause. For many that fell that day, death marked the end of the journey.

But for those who put their hope in Jesus Christ, death is not the end. We usually think about that on Easter, but it is a comfort during times of tragedy as well. It was that thought that was a comfort for Horatio Spafford when his children were lost on a doomed transatlantic voyage. It led him to pen these words, "When peace, like a river, attendeth my way; When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say; It is well, it is well, with my soul."

But it is another song that always sticks with me and never fails to inspire; a song we normally think of at Easter. The song is "Christ is Risen" by Matt Maher. The verse and bridge go like this:

Christ is Risen from the Dead

Trampling over death by death

Come awake! Come awake!

Come and rise up from the grave.

Christ is Risen from the Dead

We are One with Him again

Come awake! Come awake!

Come and rise up from the grave.

O, Death, where is your sting?

O, Hell, where is your victory?

O, church, come stand in the light

the Glory of God has defeated the Night

O, Death, where is your sting?

O, Hell, where is your victory?

O, church, come stand in the light

Our God is not dead, He's alive! He's alive!