While the World Trade Center burned and the steel girders began to melt, thousands of occupants streamed down the stairways to escape the spreading fire. One news service reported that even during this exodus, a worried man managed to call his stockbroker in the building. His concern was not for the people. He demanded assurance that his money would survive the fire.

Minutes later, the buildings collapsed into themselves, grinding down into a gruesome, stinking pile of twisted steel, crushed glass, concrete and bodies.

As one man called to check on his wealth, another young man named Richard—a volunteer youth pastor at his church—worked his other job in the World Trade Center towers. But unlike the frightened investor, Richard held few earthly treasures. A few days before his death in the towers, Richard had even told his parents that he knew his life on earth would soon end but he was ready, and that in a dream he had seen two tornadoes hit the towers. His response was not to worry, but rather to tell everyone he could about the hope Jesus offers to the world.

The investor's portfolio survived. Richard did not. But Richard's hope held firm, while the other man's investments, intact for the moment, offered a tenuous hope at best.

But if a tenuous hope is all we have, then we will cling to it, like a sailor lost at sea desperately grasping a piece of driftwood.

The families of the victims in the World Trade Center all held out hope that their loved ones would somehow survive, that they were somehow protected —trapped in an air pocket, perhaps—until cold facts and logic killed their hope. They stopped hoping and started grieving. Some replaced the hope for survival with hope that their loved ones were in a better place.

Since the attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., our shaken country has been desperately searching for a hope that will not collapse or burn or die. We search for a hope that will stand even through an enemy's assault. We search for the hope stolen by a ruinous thief coming only to steal and kill and destroy.

Memorial-service candles light faces looking for refuge. Rock stars and actors raise money to heal the wounds and restore hope. Government programs spring to life, the military responds, and the rest of the world pledges to stand with us—all good things. But memorials, money and military action cannot bring hope; not a true hope that anchors a frightened soul.

The Bible clearly defines the world's only hope, which lies entirely in the trustworthiness of God's promise:

". . . in order that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have strong encouragement, we who have fled for refuge in laying hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever" (Hebrews 6:18-20).

The only safe harbor for those fleeing the uncertainty of life, or the penalty of sin, is the "anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast" (v. 19). That anchor rests in the Rock, Jesus Christ, who intercedes on our behalf in heaven.

The word picture that God paints is of a ship at sea, beset by a storm yet safely anchored. The winds may blow, but the unseen anchor keeps it off the rocks. For our part, when storms attack, we may choose to trust our sailing skills, or our navigational abilities, or even the sturdiness of our ship, only to find it lacking. Then we crash against the rocks and join the other shipwrecked lives at the bottom.

The candles from the memorials now lie in dirty little wax puddles on the ground. The money raised will soon be spent. The government plans will run their course. The rest of the world either stands with us or goes about its business. And it all counts very little in eternity. The only source of a permanent anchor of hope is an eternal God.

And God is a loving, compassionate Father who offers us peace and blessing and joy.

Yet even so, more than 4,500 people lie dead in Manhattan. And hopelessness lines the faces on the street. Everyone feels some kind of pain. And if we tell people that God will make us feel good, or even that He will take the pain from us, then we've told them a lie.

The truth is that we live in a tragically and unalterably sin-stained world. All creation groans under the curse. And that is where God meets us, carrying an anchor chain to heaven.

We absolutely must grasp that chain and focus our faith and hope on that eternal anchor, lodged securely in the Rock in heaven. Only when our faith seeks the eternal can we have hope in the midst of death.

The investor who exposed the frailty of his anchor by calling his brokerage during the evacuation is probably relieved that his money didn't burn, although someday it will. But Richard is certainly at rest, and I imagine him singing a venerable hymn of the church:

     My hope is built on nothing less
     Than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
     I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
     But wholly lean on Jesus' name. . . .
    

     When darkness veils His lovely face,
     I rest on His unchanging grace.
     In every high and stormy gale
     My anchor holds within the veil.¹



1. Edward Mote, The Solid Rock, London, 1834.