There were several such messages, but it was the first one I heard that shook me to the core.

The voice on the phone was chilling. It was a recording of a voicemail message left by one of the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. The message was a final “good-bye” from a passenger who fully expected to die.

That passenger did, in fact, die on that fateful day. And that is what made that brief and simple voicemail so hard to hear.

It was a voice from the grave. More importantly, it was an expression of love that rose above fear.

My wife and I had visited the other two sites involved in the attacks that took place 9/11/2001. They were sobering reminders of our national tragedy. But it was that voice that made it real.

The Memorial Museum in New York is mind-boggling. The scale of the site, the remnants of two huge buildings, brings home what television coverage cannot. Huge steel girders, warped by the intense heat, compressed wreckage that may or may not contain human remains, and a variety of debris were grim reminders of an unimaginable tragedy.

But it was those voices.

Washington, D.C. is, of course, a city of monuments, so it is perhaps fitting that the memorial site at the Pentagon is a subdued and artistic reminder of that community’s losses. Row upon row of memorial benches. each engraved with a name of one of the victims. Each bench suspended over a long narrow pool of water. It is a quiet, dignified display of memorials to those lost at this site.

But it was those voices.

The memorial in Pennsylvania recognizes the loss of United Airlines Flight 93, and it is the home of those haunting voices. There is little to see outside the walls of the museum. When that aircraft struck the ground at more than 500 miles per hour, the aircraft and all it contained was reduced to shrapnel. From the platform at the site, you can view the point of impact, but there is little to mark the spot. Nature has reclaimed the area and it looks like any other piece of farmland.

Perhaps what remains is a message of love.

 

Many lessons were learned as a result of the tragedies that day. There were harsh lessons of security failures, lessons of sacrifice, and lessons of compassion and courage. Ultimately, there were far too many lessons to count.

So, what has all this to do with faith, Christianity or a belief in God?

There is no denying the pain of those losses, and there is no denying the tragedy of the sacrifice of the first responders who were lost trying to save others. It is difficult to find any positive aspect of these events.

But perhaps there is one – one so faint that it is easily overshadowed by the overwhelming pain.

It was those voices and the love behind those messages. It was evidence of the power of love to conquer even the fear of death. Those voices belonged to people who were convinced they were about to die, and yet their most urgent concern was to reassure those they loved.

One of the most often quoted verses in the Bible is John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

For those of us who struggle with the concept of a love so powerful that it would allow such a sacrifice, perhaps we can learn from those voices.

It was, perhaps, the final and greatest lesson.