I was living in Indiana fifteen years ago when the World Trade Center was hit. It felt so far away that year, my freshman year of college, but immediately our conversations on campus turned in two directions: the immediate thought of fear and terror, and the academic analysis taking an additional step away to ask what happened in the bigger picture for this symbol of a global market to be taken down in this way. And when we're not dealing with people we actually know, it's sure easier to take the stance of analysis, isn't it?

What do we do with these sorts of texts on this kind of day? When disaster and terror strike our enemies, there are many public Christians who have no problem saying it was the will of God, but when it happens here, to us, those same voices are either silent on the idea of divine retribution (of course, because America is forever infallible, to many) or they call it down on those who look like they might be related to somebody who thinks along a similar kind of way the attackers claimed to think.

Yet today of all days, that image of the shepherd chasing after the lost sheep is bright and clear. Or, rather, it is dusty, loud, frightening, and terrible. In the midst of the tragedy there is no time to think about what we might have done to deserve, or who was responsible, or what political implications there might be. In the midst of things, there is only what's right in front of us, only what we can do right now, maybe a brief 'I should have,' or 'if only,' but the seeking and finding and saving that's immediate requires so much of us. It required Jesus' entire lifetime to seek and find and rescue us from all of the ways we destroy ourselves. And he does so without needing to ask if we are worth the effort or if we will be grateful enough. He runs into our pain and desperation head-on. Not because we deserve it or have earned it, but because it is his nature to save.