Ground Zero

Atop the rubble of broken glass, charred metal and unsorted ashes, the President of the United States stood and listened to the voices of tearful and angry workers who were witnesses to the events of September 11, 2001. While some of the men shouted that they couldn't hear what he was saying, he gently took the bullhorn and spoke those unforgettable words, "I hear you! And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!" Cheers rocked the nation that day as citizens all across the country watched the declaration on their television screens in the mid afternoon. Here was our president standing in the midst of filth that was unbecoming of his position. And we adored his bravado.

Certainly time has created political debate about the decisions that have followed those famous words, but nonetheless, Americans looked on with hope that good could come of disaster. The standing presence of our highest authority made it much easier to conceive of possibility. Our president gave hope when he could have hidden in the security of his own position.

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." Genesis 1:26

Man was given dominion under God, but over all the earth. This dominion was created by one whose heavenly kingdom is eternal. Thus, an earthly "kingdom" was established, though not in such specific terms. A kingdom being any land under which authority is granted, the earth was indeed established to have a throne with man in its seat.

Yet we ask ourselves, why make anything when you have everything? Indeed, if He is all powerful in and of Himself, what would compel Him to come out from behind the veil of His own glory to create the earth and design man as its caretaker?

The answers are found in the glory of His grace. None of us expected to be created, nor did we expect that He should save us from sin. His operation on our behalf is a thing of matchless wonder. For here we stand as men and women, offspring of a divine image and subject to an unforgettable fall. We continue to be affected by the lasting impression of sin, but it was the King eternal who left an unforgettable footprint in our ground zero.