09/11/2026
Grief Is Love
by Pastor Brad
On this 9/11, we remember a day when thousands of ordinary people got up, went to work, boarded airplanes, kissed someone goodbye, made plans for later, and had no idea how quickly everything was about to change. We remember those who never came home, the families who waited for a call that never came, and the first responders and ordinary people who moved toward others when every instinct might have told them to run away.
Twenty-five years later, 9/11 still brings grief. For some, it is intensely personal. For others, it is the grief of remembering what our country experienced together. We remember where we were. We remember the images. We remember the fear and confusion. But perhaps most of all, we remember the people, because beneath all of that grief was something much stronger than fear. There was love.
Jesus understood that kind of grief. When he stood at the tomb of his friend Lazarus and saw the people he loved mourning, Scripture simply tells us, “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35) Jesus knew what was ahead, and still he wept. There was nothing weak about those tears. They came from love.
That may be one of the most important things for us to remember today. Grief is love. We hurt because somebody mattered. We mourn because a life had value. We ache because someone occupied a place in this world that no other person can completely fill. And when we understand grief that way, it should do more than make us look backward. It should change how we love the people who are still here.
The grief of 9/11 should remind us how precious life is and how quickly it can change. It should draw us closer to our families, but it should also draw us toward our neighbors. It should make us care about the lonely person down the street, the struggling family across town, the stranger whose name we do not know, and even people across the world whose language, nationality, religion, or life may be very different from our own. Every one of them loves somebody. Every one of them can be loved. Every one of them is precious to God.
Jesus told us, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:31) Maybe one way we honor those we lost on 9/11 is by taking those words more seriously. We protect what we love. We care for what we love. We refuse to look away when people are hurting. We work for a world where fewer families have to experience the terrible grief that comes when violence, hatred, fear, and division convince us that another human life somehow matters less than our own.
There were remarkable acts of courage on 9/11, but so many of them were really acts of love. People carried strangers. First responders climbed stairs while others were coming down. Coworkers helped one another. Passengers acted to protect people they would never meet. In one of our darkest hours, people showed us something worth remembering alongside the tragedy: love moves toward people.
So today we remember. We grieve. And then we ask what our grief is calling us to do. Maybe it is calling us to hold someone a little closer, forgive something we have carried too long, check on a neighbor, protect someone who is vulnerable, stand against hatred, or simply recognize the humanity of someone we have been taught to see as different.
Our grief reminds us what is precious, and our love tells us what to do about it. Perhaps that is one of the ways we truly honor 9/11: not simply by remembering how many people died that day, but by remembering how precious every life is today.
If you grieve, it is because you have loved. And if you have that much love within you, there is still so much of it left to give. Give some of it away today. To your family. To your neighbor. To a stranger. To a hurting world.
You are loved. 💝☕️
#911
