“It’s All About The
Day Before”
Some things
are impossible to forget. We all
remember Sept 11, 2001 when hijacked planes brought down the Twin Towers in New
York and struck the Pentagon in Washington D.C.
Another, United Flight 93, might have done even more damage if not for
the heroic action of Todd Beamer and others who were on that flight.
About five
years later I heard David Beamer, Todd’s father, speak at the Emmanuel
Christian Seminary banquet here in Eugene.
He spoke of how his son had “made it with man” as a highly successful
software salesman. On the day before
9/11 Todd and his wife were in Rome, ending a vacation he had won through his
sales.
They
returned to Boston and he boarded Flight 93 to San Francisco, early on
September 11. After business in SF he planned
to fly back to Boston that night, but as we know, he and all other passengers
on the hijacked plane died that day. We
know his last words because he made contact by telephone with an operator,
named Lisa. Todd gave her a message for
his wife, also named Lisa, said the Lord’s Prayer, and then was heard to say to
others around him, “Are you ready? Let’s
roll.” These were the last words that we
heard him speak.
On
September 11, his father said, Todd died a Christian. As he put it, “Todd had it made” with God as
well as with man. Then his father added
this puzzling sentence: “It’s all about the day before.” What did he mean, it’s all about the day
before? “You see,” he explained, “Todd
had it made with God the day before, and the day before that, and the day
before that .....”
It’s all
about the day before. We cannot wait
until the crisis comes to establish our relationship with God and be ready for
whatever comes. Long before Todd Beamer
and others like him, Jesus demonstrated this readiness, and this relationship,
to an even greater degree. His last
words to his disciples, recorded in John 16:32-33, say it all:
The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be
scattered ... and you will leave me alone.
Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have said this to you so that in me you may
have peace. In the world you face
persecution. But take courage; I have
conquered the world.
He was not
alone as he went to the cross; the Father was with him. He could say, therefore, even as he faced
death on the cross, “I have conquered the world.” Jesus was ready when the crisis came because
he was ready on the day before, and the day before that, and his resurrection
proved that he had indeed, “conquered the world.”
There is no
better place for us to renew our relationship with God the Father and with
Christ our Savior and be ready for whatever crisis may come than at the Table
of the Lord. Here we renew our covenant
with him, receive the forgiveness of our sins, and refresh our faith. Here we are one with him who conquered the
world.
