HOPE IS BORN OF DESPAIR

 

A meditation by the Rev. Dr. James G. Kirk

Harundale Presbyterian Church

Glen Burnie, Maryland

 

March 28, 2002

 

 

Text: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord” (Psalm 130:1)

 

            Thanks to Lauren Ward, on our recent visit to New York, Elizabeth and I got to go into St. Paul’s Chapel, a block away from where the Trade Towers stood.  Inside the chapel was gathered a goodly number of the rescue workers.  The chapel has closed its doors to the public and opened them only to serve all those who around the clock have been working at the site of September 11th.  It was amazing to feel the oneness, the closeness, and the unanimity of spirit inside the church.  Everyone there had a mission, to find as many of those who perished as possible.   All Elizabeth had to say to any of them is, “our son is with the NYPD” and the arms went wide and hugs were given in exchange.  They knew that we knew what the mission meant to them. 

 

            We didn’t want to leave.  It was as though this was as close to sacred space that we will ever come on this earth.  We also had heard that soon they would close the chapel entirely, since the work at the site is almost finished.  We spoke to quite a few of them, mostly police officers.  They told us what they had seen.  One said that the only reason he was alive and his partner was dead was because he had asthma and when the first plane had hit he was across the street setting up a triage for the victims.  Voice after voice repeated the same refrain, how out of the depths of despair they had risen to a new hope.  Hope for a safer country.  Hope they might still find some of their comrades.  Hope that this act would unite a country that had grown used to fighting with itself over trivial matters. 

 

            We can almost hear the psalmist praying to God, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O lord.  Lord, hear my voice!  Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!”  Everyone we talked to, you could sense that they had been to the foot of the cross.  Ever since September 11th they had walked daily through the hell of a senseless tragedy.  And I keep wondering to myself what will happen to them when the last body is found, when the site is declared “cleaned up,” and they no longer have their mission.  My fear is that they will then begin to grieve.  They will then know despair that until now has always been mixed with their new hope.  And the walls of that despair will come crushing down on them just as many of them witnessed the walls of the trade towers crushing in upon themselves on that fateful day.

 

            My niece out in California keeps saying to us to “get over it,” and get on with life.  She thinks that we in the East obsess too much over the event and have got to get it behind us and move on.  And I’m sure that there are a lot of people who feel the same way.  One of the reasons I can’t get over it is, I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to all those who haven’t let themselves grieve their loss, whose lives have been so preoccupied with what may yet to be done, that they’ve done nothing to help themselves.  It’s similar to people we know who suffer a tragedy of any kind and immediately go into denial.  They deny and deny and all the while they’re denying they’re doing nothing to help themselves or letting anyone else help them as well.

 

            One of the reasons this service this evening is so important is that it doesn’t let us deny the extent of God’s sacrifice on our behalf.  Being here tonight, we can’t go blithely into Easter and reap all the goodness God has to offer without bearing the brunt of what Christ endured on our behalf.  We have to go through the despair with him, not to get to some false sense of hope that something wonderful may happen, but the genuine hope that tells us that with God all things are possible.  “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice!  Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!”  That kind of despair doesn’t submit to depression, sadness or a feeling of abandonment, but brings with it a determination to make tomorrow a better day than today.  With God all things are possible.  I would invite you this evening to commit time each day to pray that those who’ve worked so hard on our behalf at the World Trade Towers may find hope out of the ashes of their despair. That’s why I won’t get over September 11th.  I will never give up that genuine hope for their lives.

 

Thanks be to God,

Amen