Nearly 90 years ago, The RMS Titanic set forth on its maiden voyage. At 822 feet in length and 93 feet wide, she was the largest moving object in the world. And she was unsinkable. Of course, you know what happened. At 11:40 p.m. on Saturday, April 14, 1912, she struck an iceberg and, within hours, sank. More than 1500 people lost their lives in the icy North Atlantic.

I suspect that as word reached England and the United States, people felt as we have felt this week—shocked and grieved. In the days that followed that disaster, they too tried to understand what had happened and why. Among those who sought to bring understanding were members of the clergy. Preachers strode to the pulpit and interpreted what had happened in various ways. The Rev. James O’May, pastor of Chicago’s Park Avenue Methodist Church, saw what had happened as the result of materialism. "It was a huge ocean joy ride," he said, "and it ended where joy rides generally stop." He went on to say that it symbolized the ruling ideology of American culture: "Make what you can, can what you make, and sit on the lid."

Another preacher, Fred Clare Baldwin, saw another demon at work. He wrote a poem entitled: "Who was to blame?" His answer:

In part the spirit of this prideful age—

Our blind, insatiate lust of luxury;

Our false disdain of all simplicity;

Our wild and senseless rage for speed;

Our maddening haste that will not pause to reckon up the waste;

Nor least of all—our gluttonous greed.

I doubt such sermonizing carries much weight today. But I share it with you because I know that this morning pastors throughout the United States are daring to speak about the tragedy that has taken place this week. Already we have heard some of what will be said. Jerry Falwell has blamed the tragedy on pagans, doctors who perform abortions, and homosexuals. Pat Robertson has said "God Almighty is lifting his protection from us" because we are "consumed by the pursuit of ... health, wealth, material pleasures and sexuality." I can imagine others who will wrap the Bible in the American flag and speak as if the very Kingdom of God has been attacked. I can imagine others who will proclaim Tuesday as the beginning of the end, a prelude to some divine-ordained apocalypse. Only time will tell whether such interpretations are valid or vacuous.

But if we learn from history, if we learn from those who spoke after the Titanic sank, we must approach the task today with humility. We do not know what Tuesday means in the grand scope of God’s work in the world. We do not know what it means for us and for the world. We do not know what is in the mind of God, and it is the utmost in arrogance to assume that we do. And so whatever we say today, must be offered in the light of the fact that we see through a mirror dimly that which is afoot in the world.

So what then do we say? Let me offer a few simple reflections.

First, the tragedy that unfolded this week reminds us that life is uncertain.

We have been reared on the myth that we are the captains of our own destiny, that we have the power to control our lives and even our deaths. So we watch carefully what we eat, exercise each week, avoid all the places where bad things are likely to happen. We do so on the assumption that if we are careful we might just live forever. But Tuesday that myth was shattered.

Barbara Olson is a name by now familiar to many of us. She was a political commentator on CNN and the wife of the United States Solicitor General, Ted Olson. She was going from Washington to California and she had planned to leave Monday. But Tuesday was her husband’s birthday and she wanted to spend Monday evening with him. And so this 46-year-old woman altered her plans and Tuesday morning found herself aboard Flight 77 out of Dulles, the hijacked plane that struck the Pentagon.

Tuesday a company of New York firefighters entered a World Trade Center building. They were doing their job, fighting the fire, searching for victims. Then the building collapsed. Hours later, from a hospital bed, one of those firefighters spoke to the media. He was, he said, the only one who made it out alive.

He was an Israeli national in search of a job—a job in the restaurant business. Where better to apply than to the famous Window on the World, high atop the World Trade Center. So he sent a resume. Wednesday, he was at home when NPR called. They had found his resume in the rubble on the street below the World Trade Center. He had not been called for an interview. He was not there when the planes struck. But he and his wife found themselves asking, "What if...?"

We cannot explain the randomness of life. We cannot explain why one dies and not another. Instead, we must learn to live without any guarantees, a truth Jesus pointed to in the parable of the rich fool. Do you remember the story? A rich man had such abundant crops that he had more than he had ever imagined. So he decided he would tear down his barns, build bigger ones, and live the rest of his many years in comfort. But, Jesus said, that very night his life was demanded on him.

One of our saints here has a habit of saying: "Every day is a gift." Tuesday we were reminded of just how right she is. Life is uncertain and we must view each day as a gift.

Second, the attack reminds us that evil is not only real, but that it dwells in the heart of us all.

The word "evil" has been thrown around a lot this week. Various politicians and pundits have called the attack evil, the hijackers evil, alleged mastermind Osama bin Laden evil. Few of us would want to argue the case. As witnesses to the death of as many as 5,000 people what other word can we use?

Yet the other night I was reminded of another reality. As our family was watching the coverage of this tragedy, the network ran a clip from the West Bank. Palestinians there were firing guns in the air, handing out candy, dancing with joy, and shouting "God is Great" at the news of what had taken place. I was asked: "Why are they celebrating?" The answer was simple. They believe that the terrorists had struck a blow against evil, against an evil empire of the United States, against those who threw them off their land a half-century ago, those who still play a large role in their oppression and misery. They believe that the terrorists had struck a blow against an evil empire whose economic sanctions have lead to the death of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Iraqi children. For them the evil was not in what happened Tuesday but in what has been happening for years.

We cannot reconcile such disparate views. Certainly we must condemn as evil that which took place Tuesday, but the Gospel will not allow us to do so arrogantly. The Gospel forces us to recognize that we are all sinful people, capable of great evil. It is no coincidence that Jesus’ crucifixion was orchestrated by Jews but carried out by the Gentiles, that scribes and Pharisees shouted "Crucify him, Crucify him" and that his disciples abandoned him. They represent all of humanity—every last one of us. While we like to imagine that we would have done it differently, God knows the inhumanity of which any of us is capable. God has seen it in the Slaughter of the Innocent and the Crucifixion, in the Crusades and the Inquisition, at Auschwitz and Hiroshima, in Hanoi and My Lai, in Kosovo and Bosnia, and the Sudan and a thousand other places around the world.

Tuesday’s tragedy reminds us that as followers of Christ, we are called to a transformed life, a life in which we not only see the speck in our neighbor’s eye but the log in our own. We not only recognize the evil in others, but also confess the evil that dwells within our own hearts.

Finally, we need to be reminded that God is still God.

Friday a historian from New Orleans suggested that part of the unity that has emerged in the United States over the last few days has come out of a common fear. He may be right. Before Tuesday most of us never really imagined that such violence could come on American soil. Because it has, many are fearful about what will happen next. Will there be more attacks? Will the fragile economy sink into recession and destroy our way of life? Will Americans soon find themselves in a protracted war far from home? Such fears are normal.

Yet those of us who follow Jesus Christ, those of us who may love our country but love our Lord even more, do not share such fears because we know that even in the darkest of hours, God is at work.

It was nearly 2000 years ago and the followers of Jesus had witnessed a tragedy that they never could have imagined. Their friend, their mentor, their hope had been arrested, tried and crucified. In an upper room they huddled, shocked, grieving, fearful. What would happen next? Would soldiers come for them too? Would they die as he had died? They didn’t know what the morrow might bring.

But a few short days later, they knew. Into their midst came the risen Christ. The one that God had sent had not been abandoned to death. Instead his life was vindicated, his words confirmed, his victory completed. No longer did any one who followed him need to fear because, as the Apostle Paul would later put it, "if God is for us, who is against us?"

The resurrection of Christ means that nothing, neither life or death, angels or rulers, things present or things future, powers, heights, depths nor anything else can separate us from God’s love. And that includes whatever is to come in the days, weeks, months, even years ahead. Our confidence is in the God revealed in Jesus Christ.

I can imagine that 90 years from now, scholars will sit in the basement of a large library, viewing the long-neglected records of what happened Tuesday and what will unfold in the weeks ahead. He will read the stories of those who were lost and watch the interviews of those who survived. She will listen to the calls for revenge and hear the nation’s leaders promise action. But I hope amid those many records, those scholars will find the story of Christians, the story of people whose first allegiance is to Jesus Christ, humbling living out their faith. I hope that they will find us helping others to see that amid the uncertainties of life, amid the reality of human evil, there is God in whom we can trust, the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Amen.