Tragedy and Triumph
This day 24 years ago is etched in any mind cognizant of that day’s events. The world stopped. Classes were cancelled. Offices were shut down. Airports grounded planes. Emergency responders were on standby. And the world waited. The attack was televised, and many tuning in to see the burning tower witnessed the second crash. This was when the ground felt like it was crumbling. News of another crash at the Pentagon also hit the airwaves.
There have not been many events that matched the sheer, naked uncertainty of those hours. It was a jarring call back to get home, find our loved ones, and face whatever comes next together. Perhaps the end was near. Maybe this was how all would be tied up, and as a believer, it was hard not to think “the day of the Lord is here!”.
But it was not to be. We have plodded on. The world was never the same. The people became polarized, and sin has endured. On Tuesday September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk was assassinated on the campus of Utah Valley University. On August 22, 2025 a young Ukrainian refugee named Iryna Zarutska was brutally murdered on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina. On June 14, 2025, Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman was assassinated along with her husband Mark. State senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were also attacked that day, but they survived. And there are countless evil acts taking place all over the world. To name them all would doom us to an endless drone.
God knows all those names, and every evil act. How may we reconcile this truth? What comfort is the God of Scripture in such times? What refuge does the Christian have? Some passages come to mind.
Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God.
So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them. (Exodus 2:23–25, NASB95)
My heart is pinned to those words at the end of the passage. God took notice of them. Israel faced the cruelty of a government wishing for their extinction. Pharoah’s boot crushed them, drawing out the blood of their children. And God heard their cries. A Savior was sent to them.
The Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings.
“So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.
“Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.
“Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:7–10, NASB95)
God “gave heed” to their cries, and sent Moses, a deliverer with overwhelming miraculous power. Through him, God liberated Israel and brought them to a land He promised to them. But their hearts were still dark, in a sense, still in Egypt. Sin still reigned in them. They were never truly liberated. No political movement or party, no trend or viral video will do. The captivity of Sin is inside.
So it is that the true Savior, the one of whom Moses was only a shadow, is the one who liberates both body and soul. Jesus is that perfect savior.
For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.
He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:13–17, NASB95)
Jesus really is the only way. All of the bloodshed, and sorrow, all the cruelty of the world, finds its end in Jesus. He reconciles it all, and makes justice. He offers redemption, forgiveness, a remedy, and a cleansing. It’s hard to see the big picture through this veil of tears, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
…He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4, NASB95)
