September 11: Remembering Courage, Renewing Faith

Twenty-five years later, we remember not only what America lost on September 11, 2001, but what ordinary Americans revealed about courage, sacrifice, faith, and freedom.

There are moments in life when history suddenly ceases to be something we study and becomes something we experience.

September 11, 2001, was such a moment.

I was serving on the federal bench at the time, but that morning I was at the University of Florida, where I was teaching future leaders in a law school classroom. It began as an ordinary September day. We had gathered to do what professors and students do—to examine ideas, wrestle with principles, and prepare another generation for the responsibilities that accompany the privilege of practicing law.

Then the world changed.

The first reports were confusing. An airplane had struck the World Trade Center in New York. Was it an accident? Information came slowly at first. Then a second aircraft struck the South Tower.

It was no accident.

Another hijacked aircraft struck the Pentagon. Still another, United Airlines Flight 93, was somewhere in the skies above America.

The magnitude of what was happening was difficult to comprehend.

I still remember the emotion of those moments. The classroom that had been a place of discussion suddenly became a place of stunned silence and disbelief. Professor and student alike were no longer primarily thinking about cases, statutes, or legal doctrines. We were Americans watching our country come under attack.

There was shock.

There was grief.

There was uncertainty.

And there was the unsettling realization that thousands of innocent people were experiencing unimaginable terror while we watched history unfold before us.

The attacks ultimately claimed nearly 3,000 lives in New York, at the Pentagon, and aboard the four hijacked aircraft (9/11 Memorial & Museum⁠).

For those of us entrusted with teaching future leaders, the moment carried another significance. The principles we discussed in classrooms—the Rule of Law, constitutional government, ordered liberty, national security, religious freedom, and the responsibilities of citizenship—were suddenly anything but theoretical.

Freedom had been attacked.

And we were reminded that freedom is never self-sustaining.

The Courage of Ordinary Americans

Yet September 11 is not remembered only for terror.

It is also remembered for extraordinary courage.

Firefighters climbed stairways while others were desperately trying to escape. Police officers and emergency personnel ran toward danger rather than away from it. Military personnel responded at the Pentagon. Across the nation, Americans prayed, donated blood, comforted strangers, and gathered together in churches and communities.

And high above Pennsylvania, a small group of ordinary Americans made an extraordinary decision.

Passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 learned through telephone calls that other hijacked aircraft had already struck the World Trade Center. They understood something terrible: their own airplane was probably intended to become another weapon.

Among those passengers was thirty-two-year-old Todd Beamer.

Beamer was not a soldier or police officer. He was a husband, father, businessman, and Christian. He and his wife, Lisa, were expecting their third child. Friends later described a man whose Christian faith was not merely something professed on Sunday but something that shaped the way he lived. He had taught Sunday school, worked with young people at his church, and arranged his business travel so he could ordinarily be home on Sundays (Christianity Today⁠).

Now his faith was being tested in circumstances he could never have imagined.

During a telephone conversation from Flight 93, Beamer spoke with Airfone supervisor Lisa Jefferson. He told her that passengers were preparing to act against the hijackers. But before doing so, something remarkable happened.

Todd Beamer prayed.

He recited the Lord’s Prayer with Jefferson. Those who knew him later saw that moment as consistent with the faith by which he had lived. Faced with almost certain death, he turned first toward God—and then toward his duty to others (Christianity Today⁠).

Then came the words that would become part of the American memory of September 11:

“Are you ready? Okay. Let’s roll!” (9/11 Memorial & Museum)

Beamer and other passengers fought back.

Flight 93 never reached its intended target. Instead, it crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. All forty passengers and crew members aboard were killed. Their actions prevented the aircraft from reaching Washington and almost certainly prevented still greater destruction (9/11 Memorial & Museum).

There is something profoundly important in that story.

Courage is not the absence of fear.

Courage is the decision that something else is more important than fear.

For Todd Beamer and the others aboard Flight 93, there was no assurance that they would survive. Indeed, they must have understood that survival was increasingly unlikely. Yet they acted because innocent lives depended upon them.

And for Beamer, courage and faith were inseparable.

He prayed.

Then he acted.

There is a lesson in that sequence.

What September 11 Still Teaches Us

Twenty-five years have now passed.

An entire generation of Americans has reached adulthood with no personal memory of September 11, 2001. For them, 9/11 is history—a chapter in a textbook, a photograph, a memorial, perhaps a story told by parents or grandparents.

For those of us who lived through it, however, the images remain difficult to forget.

We should make certain that America does not forget them.

But remembering September 11 must mean more than remembering where we were when the airplanes struck.

We must remember what the day taught us.

We learned again that evil is real.

We learned that civilization and liberty are more fragile than prosperous societies sometimes imagine.

We learned that there remain people in this world who despise the freedoms we often take for granted.

But we also learned something about ourselves.

We witnessed Americans placing themselves between danger and strangers.

We saw first responders climbing upward when everyone else was coming down.

We saw passengers aboard Flight 93 confront evil when surrender would have been easier.

And for a brief moment after the attacks, many Americans rediscovered something our prosperous and distracted culture too easily forgets: we need God.

Churches filled.

People prayed.

Political leaders publicly sought God’s comfort and protection.

Americans who had spent years emphasizing everything that divided us suddenly remembered what united us.

There was humility in those days.

Perhaps that, too, deserves remembering.

Courage for Our Own Time

Every generation faces its own test.

Ours may not come in the form of hijacked airplanes descending from a clear September sky. But the responsibilities of citizenship remain.

Liberty still requires courage.

The Rule of Law still requires vigilance.

Constitutional government still requires citizens willing to defend it.

Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion still requires men and women willing to exercise those freedoms rather than quietly surrender them.

And a free people must possess the moral character necessary to remain free.

The lesson of September 11 should therefore not be fear.

It should be vigilance without fear, courage without hatred, and faith without apology.

Scripture repeatedly commands God’s people to be courageous. Joshua stood at the threshold of an uncertain future when God told him:

“Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

—Joshua 1:9

That promise does not guarantee a life without suffering.

Todd Beamer certainly knew that.

Christian faith does not promise that obedience will always lead us away from danger. Sometimes faith requires us to walk directly toward our duty despite the danger.

That is why the image of Todd Beamer praying the Lord’s Prayer before joining his fellow passengers remains so powerful twenty-five years later.

He did not know what the next few minutes would bring.

He knew in Whom he trusted.

Then he stood.

Let Us Never Forget

So on this September 11, let us remember.

Remember those who went to work one ordinary Tuesday morning and never returned home.

Remember the firefighters, police officers, emergency workers, military personnel, and countless others who served and sacrificed.

Remember the families who have carried an empty place at the table for twenty-five years.

Remember the passengers and crew of Flight 93.

Remember Todd Beamer.

And remember that freedom is not merely something we inherit. It is something each generation must preserve.

May we therefore remain vigilant against those who would destroy liberty from without—and equally vigilant against the erosion of the principles that sustain liberty from within.

May we teach our children that courage still matters.

May we raise future leaders who understand that public service is a trust rather than a privilege of power.

May we remain a people who seek truth, defend freedom, protect the innocent, and possess the courage to stand when standing becomes costly.

And above all, may we never become so confident in our own strength that we forget our dependence upon Almighty God.

On this twenty-fifth anniversary of September 11, perhaps the most fitting conclusion is not another argument, but a prayer.

Almighty God,

We remember before You those whose lives were taken from us on September 11, 2001. Comfort those families who still bear the wounds of that terrible day.

We thank You for those who demonstrated extraordinary courage—for first responders who ran toward danger, for citizens who helped strangers, and for the passengers and crew of Flight 93 who sacrificed themselves that others might live.

Give that same courage to us.

Protect our nation from those who seek to do evil. Grant wisdom, discernment, humility, and courage to our President, to those who serve in Congress, to our judges, to our military and law-enforcement officers, and to all entrusted with public authority.

Preserve among us the Rule of Law and the precious freedoms we have inherited.

Give us the courage to defend what is good, the wisdom to recognize what is true, and the faith to trust You when the future is uncertain.

And may we remain a people who understand that liberty is both a blessing and a stewardship.

In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord,

Amen.

We remember. We remain vigilant. We trust in Almighty God. And when duty calls us to stand, may we have the faith and courage to say: Let’s roll