Can hardly imagine that this monumental day occurred 20 years ago. Peter called early in the morning from his hotel room in DC to tell us to turn on the news. The images were hard to comprehend. We had been in those towering skyscrapers when we visited our cousins a few years prior. The World Trade Center buildings were built to last, like the Titanic. Symbols of power and wealth and prestige reduced to bent steel and rubble. The collapse of many structures took countless lives of the people working their 9-to-5’s in those buildings and the first responders rushing in to rescue them. Their lives were taken that day, and they leave behind the shattered lives of their survivors.

Certainly, this was the wake-up call of all wake-up calls. Things made to last well beyond the lifetime of the builder, monuments to be admired and for building empires, brought down to rubble heaps in a matter of hours. Does it matter what motivated the terrorists to want to take America down? How many targets were not hit that day because God restrained through heroic and quick-thinking actions of people on the alert? This portion of Scripture in Luke 13 that Joni references was referenced this past Lord’s Day regarding the tower of Siloam that fell. (verses 4-5) Were the people who died in the tower collapse of Siloam or on 9-11 somehow worse than the rest of us that survived? Jesus gave this response to the people, repent, else we will all perish.

For any who are old enough to experience all the emotions of that fateful day in 2001, do you still get that gut-punch feeling when you think back to the scenes of that day and the weeks that followed? For me, for the first time, I felt America was “vulnerable,” the invincibility of the United States of America vaporized in the burning towers. But, out of the destruction came cameraderie, patriotism, gratitude, and repentance. Churches filled in response to the awareness that we had forgotten somehow that mankind was created in the image of God for God. We were busy building our own towers of success and power and wealth while taking for granted the protection we enjoy in the security of this God-fearing (and God-protecting) nation.

This crazy pandemic, no matter what you think about it, has brought us once again to face our meaning and mortality. And this wake-up call is not just for America, but for the entire world. The terrorists could only hijack so many jumbo jets to hit selected targets. We are now facing an enemy smaller than a dot of ink, ever-morphing, ever-multiplying, breaking through man’s best efforts, indiscriminately upending the daily activities of every single person on this planet earth in some way even to the point of death. Our hearts are awakened again. How do we repent in response? “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” Whatever path we find ourselves taking, we can turn back to God. There is grace to repent, to turn back, grace has a name, Jesus. God’s Son took our punishment for going against God and won forgiveness and reconciliation for us on a cross on Mount Calvary. We let go of our past and take Jesus and all He has done and all He is in exchange.

God’s building work endures for eternity. Everything we can see will pass away in a short time or in a long time. Are you aware that God loves you? Take God’s offer of love right now. When we believe on Jesus, we shall not perish, but have Eternal Life, Jesus’ overcoming life. Call on Jesus and be saved.