On our what's become an annual end of summer getaway, I watched a rebroadcast of the events of 9/11 as they happened.  Not the kind of cheery television fare you usually want to numb your mind with on a getaway trip.  Much like 8 years ago when we were starting our vacation habit, I turned on the TV one sunny morning to catch the local weather and instead tuned in just in time to see that horrific, tragic day unfold.  And just as before, there was no turning it off.  There were people I knew, or knew of, in those buildings, like most of us here did - excluding Brother Bill and others who were actually inside. How could you turn it off?

            At the end of the program the producers said the reason the show was rebroadcast was so we would never forget.  But I already had. 

            I had forgotten the initially passive description of events from the morning show personalities who were used to describing the world in sunny terms.  I had forgotten the disbelief - not yet shock - reaction many people originally had.  Were they couldn't accept what was happening as real, and tried to explain it away.  I had forgotten the confusion that permeated everything; the news reports, the man on the street, officialdom's coordination.  I had forgotten how ignorant we really were of other people's cultures - some of which include extensive hate of us - and how clueless we were about who could do such a thing. 

            I had forgotten that White House tours were once very open to the public, where folks could walk right up to the building and get in without having to beg their senator’s office for days - and still have to go through intensive security screenings.  I had forgotten that such tours were still going on that morning even after the attacks had happened because security wasn’t that big of a deal.  In Washington?  I had forgotten.

            I had forgotten how the evening news anchor folks took over from the cheery morning people when it became evident that there was no explaining away that we had been attacked; and that thousands had lost their lives, or were about to.  I had forgotten how tall the towers really were against the Manhattan skyline.  Unimaginably tall, dwarfing the Empire State building which looked impossibly high on our recent visit there. 

            I had forgotten the plume that rose, and spread, and covered, and lingered, choking the air out of people, and birds, and life. 

            Apparently I had forgotten even more than a whole lot.

            The rebroadcast rebroadcasted, I turned it off.

            I suppose that’s the way we deal with things we don’t want to see or hear or remember.  We turn it off, tune it out, remind ourselves less and less about it until we’ve forgotten it mostly.

            Scripture says in 1Thessalonians 5 that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.  What I had forgotten the most in watching the rebroadcast was the utter shock and uncontrollable fear and hysterical fits that many people on the ground in New York City as things worsened.  Not the folks in the middle of the crisis, but the folks who were watching from the front row, not to be glib.  Folks, unhurt, were screaming, sobbing, crying out the Lord’s name, some in vain, some for mercy.  Folks, looking on, panicked, were scared to death of what might be next, or that they might be next.  Most were freaking out, as our teens would say.  Hearing someone truly freak out is unnerving, makes you sick at your stomach because you see how real their pain and fear is.

            I had truly forgotten.

            And what I couldn’t get off my mind after seeing the rebroadcast was how that must be exactly the kind of reaction many of us will have at the Lord’s coming.  Utter shock, and uncontrollable fear, and hysteria.  Too late.

            There were folks at the scene who weren’t hysterical.  They were the firefighters and policemen.  Going in, going up.  They had a surety about them.  Weren’t scared, visibly.  They were prepared.  They had trained for it.  They had dedicated their lives to it.  So when the moment came, there was no fear.  And I couldn’t get that off my mind either.  How much like the firefighters I’m often not.  Prepared.  Trained.  Dedicated.  Ready.  I suspect that goes for most of us. 

            Few of us can relate to a thief in the night, thankfully.  Few know the fear associated with waking up scared to death ‘cause there’s someone in the house and we might not live.  Our cushy world is just that, cushy.  To the point we pay to go to the movie theater to be scared.  But all of us can relate to 9/11.  And whether we sobbed uncontrollably or not, we all vividly can relate to waking up to a sunny day only to see things change forever; and to realize but for the grace of God, there go I.

            If we just won’t turn it off.

For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.       I Thessalonians 5:2-6 NASB