Glimpses of Grace

The Anglican Advance in Chicago published this essay shortly after 9/11, when memories were raw and the “war on terrorism” had not been declared. Twelve years after those events, the divine purpose behind that horrific day may be as obscure as it was when I wrote these words. But my faith remains: not in my time will God’s will be done, but in His. Finding Good in the Wake of Evil I once worked for a state agency on the 58th floor of Two World Trade Center. In my naiveté, I thought that the job presented some physical danger, and I asked a colleague if he worried that a target of our investigations might turn on him. Matter of factly, he replied that he was as concerned about that as he was about one of the columns holding up the building collapsing. I don’t know if he made it out. Like everyone I know in these parts 800 miles removed form ground zero, I watched in stunned disbelief at the events of September 11, and the full effect has not yet kicked in. But as my former place of employment crumbled to the ground, I was reminded of the words of Solomon: “All is vanity.” The same Solomon who prayed for wisdom before ascending the throne, who built the Temple to match the holy city’s splendor, who ruled from the Euphrates to the Nile, could not guarantee his kingdom’s security and it was divided shortly before its people were taken into captivity. Can we expect any more of our metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs? Why evil exists in a world created by a loving God who sent his Son to redeem us is a question that all Christians must face. The Fall, man’s disobedience, human freedom to follow the darkness can’t explain why innocents are dragged into evil’s snare to suffer. When evil so dominates the headlines, we cannot retort that we might as well ask why good exists. Few jetliners crash into skyscrapers out of a desire to do good. Jesus, who wrestled with evil face to face, yet did not succumb, viewed evil as the invitation to repentance. After 18 workers were killed when an aqueduct toppled on them at Siloam, He asked whether they were more guilty than all the others in Jerusalem. Was it mere coincidence that Jesus told the young man blind from birth to wash his eyes in Siloam’s pool, the spring that the workers were trying to route to Jerusalem? And was it coincidence that one of the first deaths reported was that of the New York City Fire Department’s chaplain, who braved smoke and flame, falling concrete and inky darkness to minister to his flock? Heir to a tradition which had confronted evil for two thousand years, yet never quite triumphed over it, Jesus knew well the words of the patriarch Joseph. The youngest and favorite of Jacob’s 12 sons, Joseph lorded it over his older brothers. But when he tried to make peace with them, his brothers beat him up and sold him into slavery. Taken to Egypt, Joseph resisted temptation and years later became Pharaoh’s confidant, to whom he predicted a terrible famine. The famine brought Jacob, his remaining sons and their families to Egypt looking for food. Revealing himself as their lost brother, Joseph welcomed his family into a land that had made provision in good harvest. Finally reconciled to his brothers after Jacob’s death, Joseph fulfilled his father’s last wish when he prayed that they be forgiven, saying to them: “Though you meant it for evil, God meant it for good.”