Ten Years

I’m certain we can all remember that day ten years ago.  Well, not all, thinking of my own great-grandchildren born afterward.  We’ve already begun new generations who will hear it from those who have formed opinions based on subsequent events.  As years pass, those who lived through that day will die off, as those who remembered living through December 7, 1941.

The first call I received was from Second Daughter.  Someone had walked into her office with the news that a plane had struck a skyscraper in New York.  I remembered such an accident from my childhood, but this was not a foggy night.  This time, a second plane, a second tower. A third, in Washington. A fourth, falling in an open field. 

Those hours have been described, with such diverse stories! Some of those stories state it was our own government, others point to an Israeli plot against Islam.  So many people wanting to make it different than the fact that our security did not detect, and stop, an Islamist group coordinating an attack on the object of their hated.  A country they wished to destroy.  Willing to die doing so.

There are many who will argue over the ‘truth’ of 9/11.

Which brings to mind a similar period following Christ’s resurrection. There was so much to tell, and two ways to do it – verbally and the written word.  I like the way Luke began his book:

Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed. (Luke 1:1-4 KJV)

Even a modern journalism class couldn’t do better with Who, What, When, Where – and the Why, “That thou mightest know the certainty.”

What Luke wrote is believed by Christians, as is Matthew, Mark, John and the letters of the apostles.  These are the words Christ’s followers wanted to share with others about what they had seen and done.  They were speaking to new generations, multiple generations for centuries afterward, who would be asking – “Are you certain?”

They were.  So much so that even their mistakes in understanding His message were included.  They wrote of disappointments, discords, disagreements. They wrote of errors and exhortations, but most of all, they wrote of eternity.  This was not an easy thing to do and people died for what they believed. 

Mistakes have been made in the name of Christ, then and in following centuries.  These are men’s mistakes, not by Him and not in His message. Measure them against His word. There will always be those who ignore the words, despise the teachings, deny what changes have been made to the lives of those who follow Christ. And, there will be those who call upon His name.

And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Acts 2:21 KJV)