Romans 5:6-8 sermon, Remember 9/11

Romans 5:6-8

What have you learned from 9/11?  What have we learned as a nation from 9/11?  We learned about tragedy, trouble and death.  We learned of horrific evil and what it looks like up close.  Our nation learned what a terrorist is.  We learned heartache and sorrow.

In preparation for this day of remembering 9/11, I came across a statement made by Nobel Peace Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev shortly after 9/11: “The hour of trouble must not become an hour of despair” (http://www.thecommunity.com/crisis/gorbachev1.html).  So I ask, along with trouble, did we learn despair after 9/11?  With terrorism did we learn fear?  With sorrow, did we learn worry?  With evil, did we learn insecurity?  With death, did we learn weakness?  “The hour of trouble must not become an hour of despair.”

Almost every year since 9/11, I’ve thought, “I wonder if something will happen again on this 9/11.  If someone will try to reawaken the evil done in 2001 on that day with another attack.”  And then I thought: “And if I’m thinking that’s even a possibility, I have no doubt terrorists are thinking it.”  Bin Laden’s compound had information that the 10^th Anniversary was a selected date for attacks.  Even as we remember 9/11 today, there is increased security and high alert not just in New York and Washington, but in every major city across the US, including Atlanta which has over 5 million people and the largest airport in the world.

Today it’s time to focus on what God would have us learn in trouble – hope.

Think of what else can be learned from 9/11 – heroic sacrifice, unity revived, love expressed.  Aren’t those themes we walk away with from 9/11?  Not only do we see volunteers and random heroes from the street show up to do what they can to help.  We see businessmen and women turn into Emergency Exit Guides, directing people out of the towers down the stairs calmly and coolly, saving lives, while they stay inside for the last people out.  We see our police force, our fire fighters, our military leaders and fighter jet pilots putting their lives on the line.  These heroes dared to go in when everyone else was going out.

I’d like to share with you what John Gariti, 2nd. District relief firefighter, Chicago F.D., Professor Emeritus at Miss. State recently wrote:

“Running into a burning building sounds crazy. Watching firefighters disappear into the black smoke sometimes even a vacant building because maybe there could be a homeless person.  (It’s what we do!)

Cutting a person out of a car that’s on fire and then crawling inside of it to extricate someone!  Why would anyone?  Because it’s what we do!

Crawl into a hole in the ground where there is a collapse, confined space, trench?  Are these people on a suicide mission?  Not quite!  It’s just what we do.  

Diving into Lake Michigan when the waves are 6 feet or diving into the Chicago river at 2:00 am with zero visibility. Some watch and probably think “Wow fireman do that too?  And probably wonder why would anybody want to disappear into those waters and risk their lives?”  Because that’s what we do.

Use your imagination, come up with your worse most unsafe scenario and wonder who is going to clean this mess up and then the Firefighter and paramedics and police pull up and you feel good when they do and then you say Thank God someone is willing to do these jobs and possibly not return home to their loved ones to save someone else and you ask yourself – Why?  Because that’s what we do.”

To many of us, heroic sacrifice seems absurd.  It’s out of the question – why would you do that?  But then, you see your own neighbors doing it.  I have a police officer in the neighborhood.  I only know that because a police car is parked in the driveway.  It’s funny how even that has led me to think that our neighborhood is safer.  I don’t know the officer – could be male or female.  Haven’t met the officer yet.  But still I think to myself – What would the officer do that I wouldn’t or couldn’t do in a crisis here?  What would that officer sacrifice for someone in the neighborhood if the officer detected trouble?

Such sacrifice is what the Apostle Paul talks about in these words today.  He says, “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.”  Paul is saying, “this is rare; it’s certainly possible that for a good person, for a fellow American, someone might dare to die, but it is rare.”  On 9/11 such rare people dared to die for others – others they didn’t even know.  The only thing many of those officers and firefighters knew was that they weren’t coming out alive.  They knew someone might need them.

And we see unity expressed in their actions.  We see love in action.  And we give thanks to God for them.  God who established government for just such a purpose: not just law enforcement, but public safety.  The gift of people who are trained and willing to sacrifice themselves for you is a rare and precious gift from God.

With that in mind, Paul brings up a comparison.  The comparison between such a rare sacrifice for you and the sacrifice Jesus made is important, because it serves as the real basis for our hope.  He says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Jesus didn’t dare to die for a righteous or good person.  Jesus didn’t die for those who didn’t know either.  What makes Jesus unique is that he died for all people in the world, and he knew we were still sinners.  Jesus knew each of us when he came to die.  He could look at us and say – “Sinner, you don’t believe and trust in me with your whole heart!  You put that trust in other places.  You don’t honor me, praise me, or give me every thanks I deserve.  You don’t obey my every Word and sometimes you don’t even read it.  You don’t serve and love your neighbor as I have called you to do!  Instead you rebel.  You run after the sinful actions that I hate.”

Jesus didn’t express unity when he came to die for us.  We didn’t have unity with him.  What Jesus expressed to us by coming to save us was – LOVE.  Unique love that created unity.  In love he accomplished in death making us at one with God again.  Jesus repaired and fixed a crisis of disunity.  We are at peace before God only by what he did in dying for sinners.

It’s the demonstration of God’s OWN love.  Paul takes some time with this comparison, because God’s love is set apart, set apart from any other love.  God loved this world that had become foreign to him, strangers who had this thing called sin – for that world of people he sacrificed his Son.  And in the tragedy of the cross, God brought an END to sin.  It brought an END to death, an END to his wrath.

And now let’s make the connection of hope for today – when God’s love sent Jesus to do away with our sin and take away our death, we also have the END of trouble.  With God’s love, we learn the END of despair, the END of worry, the END of fear.  With the love of God comes the END of all that could harm us.

That’s why Paul keeps talking about the love of God and says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.   For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The emphasis in these words is not just on the love of God, but the strong love of God.  How God meets with tragedy – you think that this portion of Scripture doesn’t help us learn how God deals with danger or trouble in our lives, but it does – it shows us his love for us when we needed him desperately to love us.  It highlights God’s active love, what he did, when our need called for him to do what we couldn’t do.  This is the impact of God’s love in your life – Who shall separate us from the love of God?   This is the hope we learn today.

“The hour of trouble must not become an hour of despair.”   9/11 is already history – it’s ten-year-old history.  Jesus’ death is much more ancient history than that.  But what can we learn from them?  God’s love was there at the tragedy of the cross that took the life of his only Son.  God’s love was there on 9/11, just as his strong love is there in every trouble.  It’s love that endures, that won’t fail you or leave you.  Why not?  Because it’s different than any love we’ve ever known.    With the love of God, the hour of trouble is the hour of blessing, the hour of mercy, the hour of power, the hour of peace, the hour of hope.  This is God’s own love…for us!  Amen.