09/11/2022
Today, CHI remembers the lives lost, sacrificed, and forever changed by the terrorist attacks on september 11, 2001, and we continue to pray for healing and comfort for all those affected by the events of that day. We would like to share a sermon in our collection by Rev. Dr. Karl. L. Barth (November 7, 1924–February 16, 2020), president of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis from 1982–1990, given just a few days after the attacks.
Sermon concerning September 11, 2001 (Elm Grove, Wisconsin), 2001-09-14.
These days are among the most somber and sobering in the history of our country.
In the sorrow, the fear, and the anger we feel as citizens we have been strengthened by the leadership of President Bush - his concern for the victims and their families, his compassion in visiting those injured, and his firm resolve to respond appropriately against those guilty of this treachery.
As members of the Lutheran Church, we have been spiritually uplifted by the statement of President Kieschnick, who reminded us that what happened is “an outstanding example of mankind’s fall into sin” and who urged us to turn to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.
Indeed, in every situation of life we are called upon to apply God’s Word to our personal and communal lives, a Word of judgment tempered with mercy. We “humble [ourselves] under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt [us] in due time. “ In days of blessing we join Jacob to say, “[We] are not worth of the least of all the mercies and of all the truths which You have showed to [Your] servants.” And in days such as these, when the omnipotent God permits sorrow and distress to plague us, we call to mind the very first of Martin Luther’s 95 theses: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”
We can of course never fully comprehend in this life the “why” and “wherefore” of God’s dealing with us. And it is both unwarranted and dangerous to respond to any tragedy by claiming, “God has done this because…”
Nevertheless, we confess with Isaiah that we are not immune to God’s judgment, and we remain “a sinful nation, laden with iniquity.” Is it not tragic that we who are stunned and saddened by the loss of thousands of lives in New York and Washington pay scant heed to the 41 million (!) living but unborn in this country who have been terrorized and murdered in their mothers’ wombs, that we who are enraged to watch men, women and children in the Middle East dance in the street and flaunt their glee at what has befallen us, seem hardened to the sleaze that floods our living rooms via the tube and is even flaunted in our streets, that we who decry the violence in our schools, seem so little alarmed that the average child will witness 8000 murders on TV by the end of elementary school?
It is only as we, first of all as individuals, heed God’s continual wake-up call to repentance, that we are able by grace to grasp again and again His forgiving love in Jesus Christ, whose blood “cleanses us from all sin”, and in that love go forward with joy and confidence in the name of Him who’s “got the whole world in His hand” and who assures us that He will continue to rule the world in the interest of His Church.
Karl L. Barth
Elm Grove, WI
14 September 2001
[Sermon concerning September 11, 2001 (Elm Grove, Wisconsin), 2001-09-14, Box: Barth 1. Karl L. Barth Papers, Collection ID-0028. Concordia Historical Institute.]
