United 93

A few weeks ago my wife and I watched a movie that had been made for television some time back.  Its subject matter was simply that of the fourth "911 Jet" that was hi-jacked on that infamous September 11th.  Unlike the other three that had crashed into buildings causing the deaths and injuries of thousands on the ground, this fourth jet crashed in a field in Pennsylvania killing all those on board but taking no additional lives of innocent victims on the ground.  The film was very well done given the scarcity of information that the crew had when putting the whole of it together; indeed it was extremely emotional as we saw family members calling home to their loved ones and in effect telling them that they were about to die.

As a Christian and a pastor and preacher of the Word of God I was much taken with the similarity between what happened here in this tragic incident and a brief incident in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ during the course of His ministry.  The text is as follows:

"There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?
No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.  Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."

In their own inimitable style some of Jesus' detractors had come to Him on a certain occasion, undoubtedly in order to get Him to make some statement against the prevailing Roman government officials by relating a story that surely had many in the land up in arms over the injustice visited upon some fine upstanding Jewish citizens who had been mercilessly slaughtered during a time of worship.  But rather than make the kind of indignant rebuke that they had anticipated and hoped for, Jesus brought the whole matter down to a matter of life and death.  And then the Master brought an incident of His own to them, and responded with the same powerful statement:  "...unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" 

Now we have no way of knowing what was going through the minds of these men as they heard these words.  It's probably just as well as it is unlikely that it was very pleasant.  But as we think over the events of "9-11", and especially so as it relates to the occupants of these four planes that went down as they did, something of the reality that Christ was bringing out here must surely cross our minds.  Consider Jesus' words for example as he turned to the story tellers when they had completed their accounting, and to them He posed this question:  "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?"

We here in the civilized west do constantly look out upon that which is taking place in other parts of the world in these days, notably the middle east, and consider ourselves for lack of a better expression, "the good guys".  Why?  Well, we don't go around blowing ourselves and others up; we don't hi-jack planes and run them into buildings; we don't sever the heads off innocent people in the name of religion.  After all that's something that those hateful  Romans would do as they did on that awful day in the above accounting when they slew a group of innocent Galileans and the blood of those poor, religious men flowed down and mixed with the very blood of their sacrifices.  Horrible.  Yes indeed it was.

But you'll note that Jesus did not dwell on this outrageous act.  That's not why He had come.  He had come to deal with the sins of men, and it was to the sins of men that He directed the attention of all who listened to Him.

And it is to the sin of all the people on board United 93 that we must turn our attention.  For if they died on that infamous day outside of Jesus Christ then they perished not only from time but for eternity.  The Muslim terrorists had been raised with the horribly mistaken idea that if they died in an act of killing infidels then they would be immediately ushered into Paradise with all of the perks that they were entitled to.  They were of course wrong.  The Bible is quite specific on this in many places, but suffice it to see here at this text:

"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

If men die in their sin, whether they are of Pilate's army, or Mohammed's or Adolph Hitler's or whoever, then they become and shall ever be the possession of the evil one ... and that for eternity.

However, if a man dies in Jesus Christ because He has been purchased by the shed blood of Him who died on Calvary, then life ... and life eternal is his or hers. He or she might be fine citizens of our wonderful democratic and free land here in the west.  But that really doesn't matter.  Outside of Christ whether Muslim or American or Canadian or British citizen, he is lost.

Now, as we view United 93, or the newly released World Trade Centre motion picture, surely we must be aware of the awfulness of that day and those events.  But our thought pattern must not end there.  Thousands died horribly on that day and we must mourn them.  Jesus did not even suggest that either the Galileans so terribly killed by the Romans or those killed by the falling tower should not be mourned.  But the physically dead He did not have before Him; He had the physically alive and spiritually dead before Him and to these he forcefully reiterated, "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish"   This is the message of the Bible today and right now.  Unless men now turn from their rebellious sin and believe in Jesus Christ alone for salvation ... eternal perishing is all that remains.  That's all.

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