Thinking About Sacrifice

Did anyone else watch the History Channel on Saturday? I am a huge college football fan, and although it was billed by ESPN as Monstrous Match-up Saturday, I wasn't really interested in watching the games on most of the day. So I started flipping and landed on the History Channel, which was running 9/11 programming all day. Normally, I'm not one to watch that sort of thing, but I found several of the documentaries fascinating. There was amateur footage from that day, along with interviews of the videographers. There were first-hand accounts from first responders, people who were actually in the towers and, in at least one case, a husband who was on the phone with his wife when the first plane smashed into her floor of the WTC.

As horrifying and tragic as so much of the programming was, what struck me as I watched and ultimately moved me to tears was something I had never thought enough about to realize before. I watched the amateur footage and the interviews and realized that the NYFD responders walked into the WTC KNOWING that they, in all likelihood, would not walk back out. I mean, the risk associated with the work of a Fireman is obvious -- every time they rush into a fire, they are putting themselves at risk. But one of the surviving fireman talked about looking up at the towers that day and how all of the men in his company stopped to shake hands and say goodbye, acknowledging amongst themselves that they were embarking on a mission of almost certain death. And as you probably are aware, they were right: entire ladder companies died that day.

How did they do that? How did those men know that they would never go home to their wives and children again, never see old age, and do so knowing that their rescue mission may not even be successful? It is beyond my comprehension how a human could make this kind of sacrifice for a stranger. It makes something rise up in me -- sorrow? gratitude? -- and I haven't been able to shake the images of their faces from my mind.

At the same time, the Lord has whispered to my heart: I made the very same sacrifice. I knew, and yet I chose to walk on the earth and suffer a shameful and torturous death so that man would not have to. I did it knowing that my sacrifice, my rescue mission, would be rejected by many, and I chose to do it anyway. Why? Because I choose to give My Love to mankind, to YOU.

And I have to ask myself, How often does this realization about my God move me to tears? To action? How often do I go through a day unable to shake His image from my mind?