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Where true courage is found
I don't know very many heroes.
You know the type I mean, people who are willing, in an instant, to risk life and limb to pull someone from imminent peril.
We have all witnessed moments of courage and bravery on our evening news, scenes of sacrifice so selfless they bring tears of pride and admiration to our eyes.
Some of us have witnessed such scenes first-hand, and others among us have been active participants in such a rescue.
The passengers on the flight that ended so violently in Pennsylvania are now lauded as heroes as their story, pieced together by cell phone conversations, came to light. And a story worthy of our honor and admiration it is. They loved life and were loved in life, yet refused to be the enemy's weapon and found a way to thwart the terrorist's plan. Perhaps someday we will understand the how of it, for now it is enough to witness the truth of it.
That is heroism.
In the days immediately following the September 11 attack, we, along with the rest of the nation, returned to work. Especially impressive were those brave souls working in Manhattan and at the Pentagon, giving us new reasons for national pride. Overcoming what must have been intense anxiety and even fear, one by one, the workers, still grief-stricken, still in shock at what had happened, got up, got dressed and walked back through those scenes of destruction. They picked up their briefcases or the tools of their trades, and returned to do their day's work. They are over-comers, they are heroes.
Thankfully, life situations such as that are rare, and most of us are left to wonder and fantasize, much as Walter Mitty did, whether or not we too would be found among the courageous and the brave. Would we be numbered among those who rescue the perishing, those who pull people back from certain destruction, or would we hang back, letting someone stronger, braver or smarter, do the work for us?
Danger abounds. We live in a fast-paced, dangerous world. Each journey comes with certain risks, whether by foot, by car, bicycle, train or airplane. Some of us wander around with a diagnosis of imminent peril, or an undiagnosed condition of equal dread. As President Bush discovered, there is danger found in a simple pretzel.
These dangers all lead to one common end, for it is appointed to each man a time to live and a time to die.
What happens next? Some think we simply cease to exist. We blink out like the television does when we hit the off switch.
Others maintain that they've been here before, so they'll be here again.
Still others believe that heaven waits for all of us, because God is a merciful and loving God and therefore, there is no hell.
Wait a minute. No hell? Where then will we find ultimate justice for the likes of Ted Bundy, Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler or any number of others consumed by evil. Each are now (or are presumed to be) dead. So what? Is death an adequate justice for people of their ilk, people who sacrificed countless lives to satisfy their own idea of pleasure, their own idea of a perfect world? The torture that two of the aforementioned inflicted on their victims alone cries for justice. The lives sacrificed to stop Hitler, the lives on the line today to stop terrorism, all cry for justice. Justice only a powerful and righteous God can give, in a place that could only be described as hell.
What other argument is there that speaks to a place of eternal damnation? If men are automatically forgiven for being men, and doing what men do and are granted access to heaven, why then did someone have to die? And not just anyone, but an innocent man, an absolutely innocent man died. To rescue us from heaven? I think not. This innocent man had to die to rescue us from hell.
And that's where courage comes into play. That's where heroes can be found. Those who speak the truth in love, those who tell the story of Jesus, those who back it up with faith, always warning, ever wooing, seeking only to draw some back from certain destruction.
Do they risk life and limb? Not often, though certainly some have paid that high price to speak the truth. What do they risk? They risk the favor of men, the respect of others, they risk humiliation, perhaps job loss, sometimes even their families draw away, and true friends are hard to come by.
They, too, are heroes. Whether they speak the truth on the street corner to strangers, travel dangerous miles to savage lands, or through letters to the editor in a small town newspaper, their motive is one of love and rescue, their message one of hope and promise, and they risk all to tell it.
"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." II Peter 3:9 (NIV)