|
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5
I’ve always looked at Advent as a time of year when we all draw closer and feel a sense of belonging, of common purpose, of being a community. In 1981, I felt it in August.
At 7:10 am on Monday, August 31,1981, the Baader-Meinhof gang, a European terrorist group, detonated two carloads of explosives outside of the US Air Forces in Europe headquarters on Ramstein Air Base, Germany. Fifteen people were injured. A general officer lost a leg. I’m sure of the time because a faulty fuse set off the blast before its intended time of 7:30 am, when many more people would have been nearby walking to work and would have been killed or wounded. And I was about 150 yards from the blast, performing as supervisor of flying in the control tower.
The huge plate glass window I was facing bowed in nearly a foot from the force of the blast but somehow did not break. We assumed a cruise missile had hit nearby, to be followed by many more, heralding the start of World War 3. Phone lines went crazy, and as Ramstein was a nuclear capable base …well, things got serious very quickly. It was soon determined what had actually happened was terrorism, not war, and I was tasked with getting all the airborne fighters back on the ground and the wounded air-evacuated by helicopter to nearby Landstuhl Army Medical Center.
It was a long day, and by the time I was relieved of duty I was exhausted. I had gotten to work about 5:30 am and, after being interviewed by pretty much everybody, headed home at about 9 pm. I drove the 24 miles from Ramstein to the tiny farm village of Massweiler, where we lived as the only Americans, and turned down the long single lane road that led into town. But instead of the usual pitch-dark houses, barns, and stables, I saw the road ahead lit up with hundreds of lights. Lanterns, flashlights, and even torches. It was people, townspeople, virtually every one of the 600 or so residents of Massweiler standing in the road between me and our home. They all spoke low German and little to no English, and I spoke only a little school German. But one of the Zimmerman kids from across the street made her way to my car and explained that they were all there to apologize to me for the attack and to celebrate if I was okay and to grieve if I was not. And that they had been out there for hours, not knowing when or even if I would return. These were people who, 35 years earlier, had been widowed or orphaned by American soldiers and bombs, and they had somehow put that aside and, collectively, hugged me and welcomed me home. Out of the darkness and into the light. Just like Advent.
Dear God, help us to remember that, however dark the darkness may seem, it cannot withstand the intensity of your light, your son, our Jesus Christ. Amen.
| 
