“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
John 1:5 (NIV)
Speaking of light that shines in the darkness, it’s difficult to look back on September 11, 2001, but there are still many untold stories of heroes, who shined their light on a very dark day in history. A man named Darin was a Secret Service agent, in the building across from the World Trade Center on that fateful morning. He was at a meeting with other agents in their headquarters, when the building began to rumble and shake. They heard a loud noise and ran to look outside, witnessing the first tower that was just hit.
Darin and two other agents ran outside, tending to the wounds of people on the street, who were injured from falling debris or burned from flaming jet fuel. The agents then ran inside the tower to see if they could rescue anyone.
While inside the tower, Darin was surrounded by smoke, rubble and pitch black darkness. He could not see a thing, and without a flashlight, he listened for the voice of any survivor, in order run toward them in the pitch black darkness. He found an injured woman, but couldn’t see to find his way back out. He started praying, and suddenly he saw a ray of light that shined enough to lead him toward an exit. After bringing her out to paramedics, Darin saw that his agent friends also made it out safely.
Once outside, a fire chief was telling his crew, “Grab your gear, we’re going back in !” Minutes after those firemen rushed back into the tower, there was a loud noise that sounded like thunder and metal screeching at once. Darin and his friends watched in horror as the entire tower came crashing down, floor upon floor, like pancakes stacked upon one another.
He and the two agents grabbed a fire hose from the firetruck, and tried to put out the fires, since they were standing by the truck, while every fireman was inside the tower that had just collapsed.
Still in their business suits, without protective equipment, the three secret service agents put out fires, managing the fire hose until other firetrucks arrived. They never imagined, as they got dressed that morning, and headed to work, that they would finish the day with torn, singed clothes, the soles of their shoes partially melted from the heat, concrete dust on their face and in their mouth, while putting out fires with a fireman’s hose. Their training was to protect high ranking officials from threats of violence, but nothing like the violence that occurred that day to innocent citizens.
Over 400 first responders died that day, doing what they were trained to do, and those three secret service men survived, by doing what they were not trained to do. Heroes arise from all different backgrounds, but they all have one thing in common. They are lights shining in darkness, running toward a hellish situation, to save whoever they can, at any cost.
God shines His light in the darkness in different ways. He shined His light in the darkness, to lead Darin and the injured woman out of the tower safely. He shined His light on those first responders who saved lives, then bravely rushed back in to save more. Heroes don’t think about rewards, only what action they can do next. They are living definitions of self sacrifice, saving lives at the cost of their own life, or as Jesus called it,
“There is no greater love than to lay one’s life down for a friend,”
(John 15:13) and they did it for total strangers.
The lesson for us is that whatever dark situation we face, God will shine His light in some way, to show that He is with us, and to lead us on the right path. He does it sometimes by shining His light through heroes who save lives. He might use us to shine a light figuratively, into someone else’s darkness. Whatever type of darkness it is, God’s promise is that darkness will ‘never’ overcome His light.
Lord, today we honor all the heroes of 911, who laid down their lives for others, for the 3,000 total lives lost that day, and we pray for your light to shine upon this nation and in our lives forever. Amen
