Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The text on which this morning's message is based comes from Matthew 6: 13, the last petition of the Lord's Prayer: "But deliver us from evil." Our country has been beset by a great amount of evil this week. Our largest city and our national capitol have been intensely attacked. Thousands of people, mostly civilians, have lost their lives in this evil aggression. Thousands more have been injured or are grieving the loss or injury of loved ones. The largest of towers in our country are now but rubble. The very seat of our country's military power has been attacked. Our nation's transportation system has been impaired, and our ease and comfort with air travel will probably never be the same. It will be a long time before our country's sense of self will return to where it was before Tuesday at 8:45 AM, if it ever does. We are, as our President has stated numerous times this week, in a state of war now. It is not a "Cold War", but neither is it a regularly declared war against another country. Those types of war we understand and are confident about succeeding in. This is another type of war, one in which we do not yet understand all the rules. We are, to put it simply, beset by EVIL.

In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray for a number of things. We pray that God's name be kept holy among us, that his kingdom, his reign on earth will come. We pray that his will be done among us, and that we will receive daily earthly blessings from him to keep our bodies and relationships thriving. We pray most of all for our sins to be forgiven, for the sake of the prayer's teacher, Jesus Christ himself. It is only because Jesus Christ purchased and won our forgiveness on that cross that we can have the other petitions of this prayer answered. We pray that we will not be tested. Last of all, and in something of a summary, we pray to our Father in heaven that He would deliver us from evil.

From the Small Catechism Luther asks: What does this mean? We pray in this petition, as the sum of all, that our Father in heaven would deliver us from every evil of body and soul, property and honor, and finally, when our last hour has come, grant us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this vale of tears to Himself in heaven.

There is some debate about whether Matthew meant "deliver us from evil" in general, or "deliver us from the evil one" meaning Satan. The Greek that Matthew originally wrote can be translated either way. The debate is not hotly contested because the basic meaning becomes the same anyway. I presume that Matthew may have wrote the way he did so that either meaning could apply. We implore the Lord to deliver us from evil, the evil that was first brought by the evil one, the evil that he continues to wreak upon our world yet today.

In the Large Catechism Luther expands our understanding of this evil in words that seem especially poignant this week. He writes: "For being not only a liar but also a murderer, the devil is perpetually engaged in attempts on our life and vents his rage by causing us accidents and bodily harm whenever possible. He breaks many a neck and deranges many a mind; he drowns some persons, and he hounds many into suicide and other dreadful crimes. Therefore, we have an ongoing task on earth, and that is to pray constantly against this archenemy. For if God did not support us, we would not be safe from this foe for a single hour."

Luther continues: "From this you can see that God wants us to pray to Him also concerning everything that threatens our bodily welfare, and He wants us to ask help and to expect help from Him alone. However, He placed this petition after the others for the reason that if we are to be shielded against and freed from all evil, His name must first be hallowed within us, His rule extended over us, and His will done by us. Then He will preserve us from sins and shames and from everything else that might hurt or harm us." (Luther, Large Catechism, last petition of the Lord's Prayer)

We live in the most powerful country, economically and militarily, that the world has ever known. That fact is both a blessing and a curse for us. It is a blessing to live in a country in which we live quite comfortably, even if we are not personally rich. It is a curse when many others covet what we have and despise our country for having such blessings. It is a blessing to live in a country that has so many freedoms, especially the freedom to worship our God as He has revealed and portrayed Himself in His Holy Word. It is a curse that those freedoms can be used against us to wreak so much havoc and destruction, especially by an extremist few.

It is a blessing to be relatively confident that our physical safety and well-being is relatively well-assured, at least in comparison to other countries whose military, police and health services are deficient compared to ours. But that blessing can become a curse when we begin to trust in those created services more than in the creator himself. We live in a country where many people, at least until this week, don't consider the extremes that evil can take in their personal lives. Never in our lifetimes has an external visible enemy brought death and destruction to so many in this country, not at Pearl Harbor, not at the Oklahoma City bombing. In the past century we have seen great technological advances in our society: the invention of the airplane, advances in architecture and engineering that allow the construction of great and tall buildings, biological and medical advances, atomic energy. These technological advances have generally been beneficial.

But this week we have seen how human sinfulness and evil can take those technological advances and use them or threaten to use them in dastardly ways. As Luther said, the devil "hounds many into suicide and other dreadful crimes."

We perhaps have had a bit too much pride in our country's strength, too much esteem in our tall buildings. I found some quotes from the architect World Trade Centers Towers Minoru Yamasaki. He said: "All (such) buildings must be 'strong'. The word 'strong' in this context seems to connote 'powerful' — that is, each building should be a monument to the virility of our society." "Columns on 39-inch centers acting as wind bracing to resist all overturning forces." I quote Mr. Yamasaki not to fault him personally, but as an example of our human tendency to look to ourselves for strength, power, and virility. Whenever we trust in our human abilities to ultimately resist and deliver us from evil, we will be badly disappointed. This week President Bush said that we are now engaged in a war with an enemy that lurks in caves and shadows. He is right. And he, our government and other legitimate governments have the God-given duty to strive to keep an earthly peace. But in another, spiritual way President Bush's words were true as well. We who are Christians are, and have been for centuries, engaged in a war with an enemy that lurks in the shadows, an enemy that we ourselves cannot overcome. But we need not trust in our own abilities to resist and deliver us from this evil and this evil one. We need only trust in Jesus. Our ongoing task is to pray "Our Father, deliver us from evil" and trust Jesus words "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing." Jesus has conquered ultimately this evil and evil one through his death and resurrection. Humans take technological advances and turn them into evil. Jesus took evil, his crucifixion at the hands of evil mankind, and turned it into life and salvation for us. We will continue to see and be victims of evil while in this life, but we can be confident that ultimately our Lord has conquered evil. We are left here on earth only to tell others, burdened by evil, about his message of hope and new life for those who turn to him in repentance and faith.

I don't think I can say it better than to close with the 5th stanza of Hymn 391 which we just sang:
I walk with Jesus all the way,
His guidance never fails me;
Within his wounds I find a stay
When Satan's pow'r assails me.
And by his footsteps led
My path I safely tread.
No evil leads my soul astray;
I walk with Jesus all the way.

The grace, guidance and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us always. Amen.