September 11: Past, Present, Future

We haven’t gotten over September 11. Does that even need to be said? But it really hit me as I looked at the calendar for this month at OSLC. The second Sunday of September is Sunday School Launch Day, as it always is, and the youth group’s Back-to-School Bash is scheduled for the afternoon that same day.

That day is September 11.

My first impulse was to reschedule these events to a date that would be more appropriate. These activities for kids tend to be light-hearted and fun in a way that does not befit a somber day.

Then I thought: Why do we have Sunday School? Isn’t it to give kids a firm foundation on God’s Word so that they can face the challenges of life and know that God loves them and has saved them from evil through our Savior, Jesus Christ? We need Sunday School because of dates like September 11.

It has been ten years since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That means that all of these Sunday School children (up through 5^th grade) have grown up in a post-9/11 world. The junior high and high-school youth have at best dim memories of life before there was a Department of Homeland Security or random checks at airports. They need the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is a fine line between moving on and forgetting. The date “September 11” is emotionally charged for us as a nation, but you may have other dates—the day you lost a parent, or a child, or a spouse. Each year, when that anniversary rolls around, you fear dishonoring their memory by living your life.

But the freedom we have in Christ is that we can move on, confident that our loved ones who knew Jesus are safe in His everlasting care, and that we will join them one day. There is enough tragedy in life to completely fill the calendar, but we mustn’t let it paralyze us.

I have thought about how another infamous date, December 7, doesn’t mean nearly as much to people younger than me as it does to people older than me. One day, sometime in the future, September 11 will be like that. It won’t sound as jarring to hear that there is a birthday party or some other joyous event on that date. I pray that it is not because some other date of equal or greater tragedy has replaced it, although that possibility exists. So it is my more earnest prayer that we not forget the past, but find healing and comfort in Christ Jesus, our Savior, and hope for an eternal future.