The Survivor Tree
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
old things have passed away;
behold, all things have become new.
(2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV)
September 11, 2001 is a day marked in infamy on par with the attack on Pearl Harbor. It’s a day that no one who lived through could ever forget. The twin towers falling, the Pentagon burning, and the lone plane crashing in a remote field in Pennsylvania taken down by incredible people who decided they would rather give their own lives than see others die. In John 15:13, Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” Those people exemplified that love.
Every day I drive past the Pentagon to and from work—a building that usually represents strength and permanence. Until September 11th, that is. Coming home that afternoon, I could see the huge gaping hole in the side and the charred skeleton of the plane that had become a missile. I could smell the ghastly odor of burning jet fuel. The sounds of sirens seemed to continue for hours as injured survivors were pulled from the burning rubble and rushed to nearby hospitals.
I was working for two former New York congressmen at the time. That morning, we all watched in horror as the twin towers fell. Both knew people who worked in those buildings. It was confirmed later some of the people they knew did not make it out.
But despite the incredible evil that was perpetrated that day, stories and images of unbelievable courage and bravery stood above it all.
There was the story of a man who dug in the rubble for days without sleep or rest until he found the body of his firefighter son who had gone into the buildings to rescue people. There was the image of police officers and firemen standing to attention, saluting as the body of a German Shepherd dog was brought out on a stretcher. He had gone into the tower with his policeman handler and had died by his partner’s side. Story after story of ordinary people working the pile, day in and day out, determined to bring loved ones home to their families.
There is one simple but special story that made me pause and think. On the site was a small pear tree. When the buildings fell, it was buried under tons of rubble. As the rescuers went about the ghastly task of recovering bodies, they came across the little tree, severely damaged, crushed, and burned. On a regular day, it probably would have been tossed aside, headed for the garbage dump. But the workers didn’t see a crushed tree, they saw hope. They carefully dug it up and handed it over to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation for rehabilitation.
Miraculously, the tree survived, grew, and flourished. But the most amazing thing about the tree is that there is a clear demarcation between its past and its present. One side of the tree is gnarled, scarred, and burnt. The other side is new, green, budding, and growing. It became known as the “Survivor Tree” and it is now part of the 911 memorial at Ground Zero.
Isn’t that how we were before we came to Christ? Broken, gnarled, burnt, with no hope for the future, ready to be tossed aside on life’s garbage heap. But then Christ comes and makes all things new, and we grow and flourish, our burnt pasts left behind.
