Sure, when I think of 9/11 I remember the terror. But also the coming together. With our common enemy in view, we felt united with strangers, all of us facing the same shock and fears. We grieved and we rallied—as one.

Maybe you noticed a similar phenomenon last year, at the onset of this grueling new era. Remember those earliest weeks, when we were first startled awake to a threat, how our hearts joined up with a common enemy in view—a virus?

Then things got, well, muddled. In fear and frustration, we lost our united front—surprisingly even among those of us who fully experienced 9/11 as adults. This time many questioned, Who is my enemy? We pointed fingers.

And I am culpable. The moment I entertain accusatory thoughts about those I see as misbehaving, I’m part of the problem.

So how do we go to war when the common enemy is us? What can break this stupor? I know of only one weapon with power to disarm rage, bridge differences, heal fractures. The love of Christ.

But how does one fire a bullet of love into a maelstrom?

We know how Jesus de-escalated centuries of pride, animosity, and division. He reframed the conversation. He answered tightly wound legalists with stories they’d only understand if their hearts were open. He responded to the self-righteous with a challenge: Can you drink the cup I drink?

And he told us to do a thing we can’t possibly do apart from his help: love our enemies.

Um. Most of us are in a lifelong struggle with just the “love your neighbor” part of this assignment. But to love those who seem to go out of their way to make it hard? That’s grad-level spiritual formation, we think.

Yet maybe we’re approaching it backward. Maybe if we were to focus on loving our enemies, we’d become people who love our neighbors, in the bargain.

When you and I consider the mercy and kindness the Lord has shown us, when we see ourselves for what we are apart from the love of God—Pharisees and bootstrappers and those who murder others in our hearts—suddenly this becomes the very least we can do. For others, yes. But really, for Christ.

Remembering 9/11 can’t save us. But you’ll recall another morning of blood and dust, horror and tears. Of two rough cross pieces and a life given. I say this tenderly: you steadied the nail and I swung the mallet.

Friends, we’ve got to fight an altogether different war. One in which we recognize that we do in fact share a common enemy—our flesh. And flesh can only be conquered by the Spirit.

There is good news: When you joined the family of God you were given a new operating system. If you choose to yield to it, you’re free to walk in the Spirit.

If you fix your eyes on what the Spirit desires, you’re free to love and understand and extend kindness, regardless of what kind of arrows that other person is launching.

Here’s the true battlefield, the one we’re actually called to: continuously opening our awareness to the ongoing struggle within, this war between flesh and spirit. Between who we are and the peacemakers we’re called to be.

This tension then becomes a welcome reminder of our need for more of God. Remembrance of the cup Jesus drank. And of the bridge to peace that’s ours to cross. One he built for us with nails meant to kill him.

Peace and healing begin with you and me. Here, today.

We got ourselves into this unholy war with each other. And we can end it.

See Matthew 5; Matthew 20; Romans 8.