"LORD, HELP ME!"
9/11 - Help
Ten years ago to the day the World Trade Center in New York City was attacked by terrorists. In fact, ten years ago to this very hour our country was right in the middle of it. Just over a half hour ago, at 8:46AM, American Airlines Flight 11 was flown into the north tower exactly one decade ago. And then at 9:03AM, only a few minutes after we started our worship service this morning - while we were singing the hymn: “What God Ordains is Always Good”, United Airlines Flight 175 was flown into the south tower. Before we finish worshiping together here we will have arrived at 9:59AM, the time at which that south tower collapsed. And in just over an hour from now we will see the 10th anniversary to the minute of that north tower crumbling to the ground at 10:28AM. This is a day of commemoration and a time of remembrance about an event that shook the very foundation of America’s sense of security and the feelings of invulnerability that almost everyone in this country once had. It is an anniversary of a tragic act of hatred, and many of us have not even come close to getting over it. Especially those who lost loved ones in the carnage of September 11th, 2001.
One of the many people that lost their lives that day was a man named Kevin Cosgrove. He had been working in the south tower that morning when the plane hit. And although his floor was not immediately destroyed at impact, he was close enough that all of the exits were destroyed in the crash and the office area he was in filled up with smoke. All Kevin could do was call for help. His 911 call has long since been released to the public and you can easily find it on the internet along with a video of the building he was in at the same time, smoldering from the airplane-sized hole in its side. During that conversation this man told the 911 operator exactly what floor he was on, what office he was in, how many people where there, what was happening around them… He told her what he could do and what couldn’t do, and he told her to hurry. But in the middle of that phone call the tower collapsed on top of him and, with a final scream into the phone, the line went dead. It really is a disturbing video. Because although you don’t see Kevin Cosgrove die, you hear it happening from the recorded message as the tower disintegrates into a cloud of smoke and dust and debris right in front of your eyes. And suddenly his cries for help are no longer there. And all of his detailed instructions about where he was and what he was doing and the urgency of his rescue didn’t matter anymore. He had needed help, he asked help, but there was really nothing that anyone could do.
A Humble Prayer
Many years before all of this happened, way back during the time when Jesus walked on this earth, there was a woman who lived in the area of Tyre and Sidon. It was about 40 miles northwest of the Sea of Galilee on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. And when Jesus made a special trip one day up to that part of the country, this woman ran out to him because she too was in desperate need of help. The well-being of her daughter was in danger because of an evil spirit that had possessed her and so it really was a matter of life or death. Listen to simple, powerful, and yet humble prayer for help that she prays: A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
“Lord, help me!” What a simple prayer. What a powerful prayer! What a humble prayer! She knew who Jesus was - the promised Son of David; and she knew who she was too - an unworthy sinner. But she believed that her Lord would listen; she trusted in what he could do; and she relied on his mercy and compassion. “Lord, help me!” And notice that she didn’t go into any details. She didn’t explain what kind of danger the evil spirit put her daughter in; she didn’t tell the Lord exactly what she wanted done; she didn’t give Jesus a time frame in which she would like to see him help her… she simply asked for his help and that was it. She left everything up to the Lord and his will, fully confident that he would do what was best at just the right time in just the right way for just the right reason. “Lord, help me.”
The Lord is Not Ignorant
We pray for help all the time, don’t we? We pray that the Lord would help us when we’re in trouble, when we’re hurting, when we’re worried… But rarely do we pray for help like this. We usually don’t stop with those three little words and end it with a period: “Lord, help me.” No, we like to say, “Lord, help me… in this exact way at this exact time in this exact place. And I need it to be done according these specifications or it’s just not going to work out too well and I really don’t see any better solution than the one I’ve proposed.” Now I hope that we aren’t that blunt and that disrespectful with our Lord, but we do tend to give him plenty of advice and a whole pocketful of suggestions and quite a few recommendations that, truthfully, are more like instructions than anything else.
We have to stop treating our Lord as if he were ignorant of the facts or as if he needed our opinions or as if he has just been waiting around for our brilliant insights and understanding before he goes ahead and does anything about the situation at hand. Our Lord is not ignorant; he is not unaware; he is not incapable of making a decision without your direction. The Lord is pleased with your prayers, but he doesn’t appreciate commands so much. The Lord welcomes your pleas and your petitions, but he doesn’t really enjoy being given ultimatums, time constraints, and other specific directions that he is supposed to follow. He is more than willing to help, but he doesn’t want to be ordered around.
And this is not just an act of disrespect - although that would be bad enough - it’s really an act of insubordination. We aren’t asking him for help when we pray like this, we’re demanding his service. We aren’t praying in a humble way, but arrogantly. We aren’t pleading with him as unworthy sinners, we are telling him what we want as if he owes it to us. This is not the way to pray. This is not the way to approach a perfect, almighty God who owns the world and everything in it. This is the way one approaches a child who doesn’t know what he is doing.
The Lord Knows Just What to Do
When that first plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center over 3000 911 calls were made from those two buildings within the first 10 minutes. 3000 calls for help, for assistance, for answers. At first, those who answering those calls didn’t know what was going on, then they didn’t know exactly what to say, and eventually they didn’t have anyone else to send. There came a point when the operators didn’t know what else to do. The problem had been identified, every available responder had been called, the situation for many of those people in the tower 100 stories up was impossible to change, and so no matter how many calls were made and no matter what kinds of things were said and no matter how passionately those people pleaded, the 911 operators didn’t know what to do. Everything had already been done, and it wasn’t enough.
I would hope that if 3000 calls were made to 911 in that first 10 minutes, at least three times that many prayers went up to the Lord by the believers in those buildings. I would hope that the Lord was inundated with calls and requests and urgent pleas from the Christians in that situation. Because the Lord actually could help. The Lord actually did help. Just like he heard the prayer of that woman in Matthew 15, Jesus heard the prayers of the people in those towers, he listened to them, he answered them. Maybe not in the way they intended, but he did answer them in the best way possible. The Lord certainly used that tragic event to bring many of his children home. He provided a way in which many Christians were taken out of this world of sin and pain and fear in an instance and were brought to a place of perfection and peace and joy in the blink of an eye. There were undoubtedly many cries to the Lord for help inside those two teetering towers on September 11th, 200l, and the Lord knew just what to do.
He always has. The Lord has always known just what to do in the worst of situations. Think of the terrible situation that Jesus himself was in at the end of his life on earth. He humbly prayed for help in the Garden of Gethsemane that night that his Father’s will be done, not his own. And his Father answered him by sending him to the cross. Jesus then asked his Father to forgive those who were crucifying him. And his Father answered him by making him suffer the pains of hell as he hung there. Jesus then cried out to his Father when he turned his back on him, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And his Father answered him by not answering at all - because that’s what being forsaken by the Lord is, after all. Jesus then humbly trusted in his Father to the very end, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And his Father answered him by taking his life. The Father knew just what to do. And so did the Son. Jesus displayed an incredibly humble attitude to his Father throughout those last few hours of his life - and he did it for us. Not so much as an example for us to follow, but as a sacrifice for us to believe. He humbled himself to the point of being tortured by those he came to save. He humbled himself to the point of becoming a corpse in a grave for three days so that we could be forgiven. And he did it long before any of us here even existed. He helped us when we didn’t ask for it; he helped us when we didn’t want it; he helped us before we even knew that we needed his help. The Lord has always known exactly what to do to help us with any problem in our lives. And he still helps us with every problem in our lives today.
Place It All in His Hands
And so place everything in his hands. Follow the lead of this woman northwest of Israel and place everything in your Savior’s hands with those three simple words, “Lord, help me.” You can pray more than that, but you don’t have to! You can pray for others, thank the Lord for his blessings, confess before the Lord your sins, but when it comes to those requests that you would like to see happen and those problems that you would like to see fixed, “Lord, help me” is about the simplest and the most humble way to go about it. Because that simple prayer demonstrates a trust in the Lord’s power, an acknowledgement of our own incompetence, and a confidence in the Lord’s love. In fact, it wouldn’t be a bad thing if that simple prayer was prayed every day: “Lord, help me.” Unless, of course, you don’t need his help…
If you have an opportunity today to hear or read the transcripts of any of the 911 calls made from the World Trade Center 10 years ago, you’ll notice that most if not all of them include the phrase, “Please hurry” somewhere within the conversation - and many times that is the last thing the caller says before hanging up: “Please hurry.” But when you are asking your Lord for help - no matter how urgent the request may be - you don’t ever have to say “Please hurry,” because he’s already there. He is already with you, he already has the situation under control, he already has you safely in his hands. That’s why the Gentile woman in the gospel reading today could ask something so simple of her Lord so calmly: she knew. She knew what he could do and was confident that whatever it was, it was going to the best thing possible. Share that confidence, that calmness, that humility with that Christian woman. Be assured that he is powerful enough to do what needs to be done and loving enough to want to do it. And pray, every day, that simple, yet powerful prayer, “Lord, help me.” Because he will. He will.
Amen.
“The Lord will rescue us from every evil attack and will bring us safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.” - 2 Tim. 4:18
9/11 - Help
Ten years ago to the day the World Trade Center in New York City was attacked by terrorists. In fact, ten years ago to this very hour our country was right in the middle of it. Just over a half hour ago, at 8:46AM, American Airlines Flight 11 was flown into the north tower exactly one decade ago. And then at 9:03AM, only a few minutes after we started our worship service this morning - while we were singing the hymn: “What God Ordains is Always Good”, United Airlines Flight 175 was flown into the south tower. Before we finish worshiping together here we will have arrived at 9:59AM, the time at which that south tower collapsed. And in just over an hour from now we will see the 10th anniversary to the minute of that north tower crumbling to the ground at 10:28AM. This is a day of commemoration and a time of remembrance about an event that shook the very foundation of America’s sense of security and the feelings of invulnerability that almost everyone in this country once had. It is an anniversary of a tragic act of hatred, and many of us have not even come close to getting over it. Especially those who lost loved ones in the carnage of September 11th, 2001.
One of the many people that lost their lives that day was a man named Kevin Cosgrove. He had been working in the south tower that morning when the plane hit. And although his floor was not immediately destroyed at impact, he was close enough that all of the exits were destroyed in the crash and the office area he was in filled up with smoke. All Kevin could do was call for help. His 911 call has long since been released to the public and you can easily find it on the internet along with a video of the building he was in at the same time, smoldering from the airplane-sized hole in its side. During that conversation this man told the 911 operator exactly what floor he was on, what office he was in, how many people where there, what was happening around them… He told her what he could do and what couldn’t do, and he told her to hurry. But in the middle of that phone call the tower collapsed on top of him and, with a final scream into the phone, the line went dead. It really is a disturbing video. Because although you don’t see Kevin Cosgrove die, you hear it happening from the recorded message as the tower disintegrates into a cloud of smoke and dust and debris right in front of your eyes. And suddenly his cries for help are no longer there. And all of his detailed instructions about where he was and what he was doing and the urgency of his rescue didn’t matter anymore. He had needed help, he asked help, but there was really nothing that anyone could do.
A Humble Prayer
Many years before all of this happened, way back during the time when Jesus walked on this earth, there was a woman who lived in the area of Tyre and Sidon. It was about 40 miles northwest of the Sea of Galilee on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. And when Jesus made a special trip one day up to that part of the country, this woman ran out to him because she too was in desperate need of help. The well-being of her daughter was in danger because of an evil spirit that had possessed her and so it really was a matter of life or death. Listen to simple, powerful, and yet humble prayer for help that she prays: A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
“Lord, help me!” What a simple prayer. What a powerful prayer! What a humble prayer! She knew who Jesus was - the promised Son of David; and she knew who she was too - an unworthy sinner. But she believed that her Lord would listen; she trusted in what he could do; and she relied on his mercy and compassion. “Lord, help me!” And notice that she didn’t go into any details. She didn’t explain what kind of danger the evil spirit put her daughter in; she didn’t tell the Lord exactly what she wanted done; she didn’t give Jesus a time frame in which she would like to see him help her… she simply asked for his help and that was it. She left everything up to the Lord and his will, fully confident that he would do what was best at just the right time in just the right way for just the right reason. “Lord, help me.”
The Lord is Not Ignorant
We pray for help all the time, don’t we? We pray that the Lord would help us when we’re in trouble, when we’re hurting, when we’re worried… But rarely do we pray for help like this. We usually don’t stop with those three little words and end it with a period: “Lord, help me.” No, we like to say, “Lord, help me… in this exact way at this exact time in this exact place. And I need it to be done according these specifications or it’s just not going to work out too well and I really don’t see any better solution than the one I’ve proposed.” Now I hope that we aren’t that blunt and that disrespectful with our Lord, but we do tend to give him plenty of advice and a whole pocketful of suggestions and quite a few recommendations that, truthfully, are more like instructions than anything else.
We have to stop treating our Lord as if he were ignorant of the facts or as if he needed our opinions or as if he has just been waiting around for our brilliant insights and understanding before he goes ahead and does anything about the situation at hand. Our Lord is not ignorant; he is not unaware; he is not incapable of making a decision without your direction. The Lord is pleased with your prayers, but he doesn’t appreciate commands so much. The Lord welcomes your pleas and your petitions, but he doesn’t really enjoy being given ultimatums, time constraints, and other specific directions that he is supposed to follow. He is more than willing to help, but he doesn’t want to be ordered around.
And this is not just an act of disrespect - although that would be bad enough - it’s really an act of insubordination. We aren’t asking him for help when we pray like this, we’re demanding his service. We aren’t praying in a humble way, but arrogantly. We aren’t pleading with him as unworthy sinners, we are telling him what we want as if he owes it to us. This is not the way to pray. This is not the way to approach a perfect, almighty God who owns the world and everything in it. This is the way one approaches a child who doesn’t know what he is doing.
The Lord Knows Just What to Do
When that first plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center over 3000 911 calls were made from those two buildings within the first 10 minutes. 3000 calls for help, for assistance, for answers. At first, those who answering those calls didn’t know what was going on, then they didn’t know exactly what to say, and eventually they didn’t have anyone else to send. There came a point when the operators didn’t know what else to do. The problem had been identified, every available responder had been called, the situation for many of those people in the tower 100 stories up was impossible to change, and so no matter how many calls were made and no matter what kinds of things were said and no matter how passionately those people pleaded, the 911 operators didn’t know what to do. Everything had already been done, and it wasn’t enough.
I would hope that if 3000 calls were made to 911 in that first 10 minutes, at least three times that many prayers went up to the Lord by the believers in those buildings. I would hope that the Lord was inundated with calls and requests and urgent pleas from the Christians in that situation. Because the Lord actually could help. The Lord actually did help. Just like he heard the prayer of that woman in Matthew 15, Jesus heard the prayers of the people in those towers, he listened to them, he answered them. Maybe not in the way they intended, but he did answer them in the best way possible. The Lord certainly used that tragic event to bring many of his children home. He provided a way in which many Christians were taken out of this world of sin and pain and fear in an instance and were brought to a place of perfection and peace and joy in the blink of an eye. There were undoubtedly many cries to the Lord for help inside those two teetering towers on September 11th, 200l, and the Lord knew just what to do.
He always has. The Lord has always known just what to do in the worst of situations. Think of the terrible situation that Jesus himself was in at the end of his life on earth. He humbly prayed for help in the Garden of Gethsemane that night that his Father’s will be done, not his own. And his Father answered him by sending him to the cross. Jesus then asked his Father to forgive those who were crucifying him. And his Father answered him by making him suffer the pains of hell as he hung there. Jesus then cried out to his Father when he turned his back on him, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And his Father answered him by not answering at all - because that’s what being forsaken by the Lord is, after all. Jesus then humbly trusted in his Father to the very end, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And his Father answered him by taking his life. The Father knew just what to do. And so did the Son. Jesus displayed an incredibly humble attitude to his Father throughout those last few hours of his life - and he did it for us. Not so much as an example for us to follow, but as a sacrifice for us to believe. He humbled himself to the point of being tortured by those he came to save. He humbled himself to the point of becoming a corpse in a grave for three days so that we could be forgiven. And he did it long before any of us here even existed. He helped us when we didn’t ask for it; he helped us when we didn’t want it; he helped us before we even knew that we needed his help. The Lord has always known exactly what to do to help us with any problem in our lives. And he still helps us with every problem in our lives today.
Place It All in His Hands
And so place everything in his hands. Follow the lead of this woman northwest of Israel and place everything in your Savior’s hands with those three simple words, “Lord, help me.” You can pray more than that, but you don’t have to! You can pray for others, thank the Lord for his blessings, confess before the Lord your sins, but when it comes to those requests that you would like to see happen and those problems that you would like to see fixed, “Lord, help me” is about the simplest and the most humble way to go about it. Because that simple prayer demonstrates a trust in the Lord’s power, an acknowledgement of our own incompetence, and a confidence in the Lord’s love. In fact, it wouldn’t be a bad thing if that simple prayer was prayed every day: “Lord, help me.” Unless, of course, you don’t need his help…
If you have an opportunity today to hear or read the transcripts of any of the 911 calls made from the World Trade Center 10 years ago, you’ll notice that most if not all of them include the phrase, “Please hurry” somewhere within the conversation - and many times that is the last thing the caller says before hanging up: “Please hurry.” But when you are asking your Lord for help - no matter how urgent the request may be - you don’t ever have to say “Please hurry,” because he’s already there. He is already with you, he already has the situation under control, he already has you safely in his hands. That’s why the Gentile woman in the gospel reading today could ask something so simple of her Lord so calmly: she knew. She knew what he could do and was confident that whatever it was, it was going to the best thing possible. Share that confidence, that calmness, that humility with that Christian woman. Be assured that he is powerful enough to do what needs to be done and loving enough to want to do it. And pray, every day, that simple, yet powerful prayer, “Lord, help me.” Because he will. He will.
Amen.
“The Lord will rescue us from every evil attack and will bring us safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.” - 2 Tim. 4:18
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment