A few years ago I did a trip to New York City with some clergy friends. On our last full day we spent the morning touring the 9/11 Museum and visiting the memorials. We knew this would be a hard day but we also really wanted to spend time here. We weren’t looking forward to it but we needed to take some time to remember and to grieve. I walked in and immediately started crying. I remember that day as clearly as I remember other memorable happy moments in my life. It was a marker in the timeline of my life. Everything changed that day. Travel was different. The climate of world relations. And our collective grief united us for awhile. Everyone had a story from that day. Some were simple awareness of what was happening. Some were stories of friends or family in one of the locations. Some made it. Others didn’t.
We relived all of it in the museum. We re-watched the news reports that we watched that day. We saw broken, mauled, charred support beams, rescue vehicles, and stairs. We heard voicemails of people calling home knowing it was probably the last message they could leave for their loved ones.
It was haunting. It was painful.
One thing I’ve learned about grief is that it is collective. When you grieve something new, you churn up old grief as well. So this time for us wasn’t just grief from 9/11/2001, it was also grief from Covid – people we lost and opportunities we lost. Plus our own grief that comes as a part of living life in a broken world.
While we were in the museum we heard about “The Survivor Tree.” Apparently there was one tree near the Twin Towers that survived. While everything around it crumbled to the grown, this tree remained not only alive but a symbol of hope.
The tree is pictured here with the Freedom Tower present through its limbs. It was a reminder that life goes on even 24 years later. And it reminded us that even the new grief we experienced is not the end…it doesn’t define our story…it shapes it but our story is a story of life and hope and love. It was a perfect way to leave the site.
So what defines our ending? What does it look like? What should we expect? You might think that the answer lies in the book of Revelation. But you’d only be partially right. There’s so much more to the ending that we will ever comprehend but the good news is that we don’t have to wait for parts of the ending. We can experience some of it now.
On Sunday, I’ll be preaching on “The Ending.” This was a suggestion from the survey I did a year ago. One of you wanted to hear about “The Ending.” I suspect many of you are curious. I hope this curiosity leads you to invite someone to worship and keep the conversation going.
I’m looking forward to it. See you Sunday!
