A Travesty of Justice

If you haven’t seen the final seconds of Monday’s game, they are all over the internets.  Two players going after the ball, both touching it but only one with anything close to control of it.  And then you have two officials watching the same play, one signaling an interception and one signaling a touchdown.  After review, the touchdown remained, and justice left the stadium.

So, what’s my take on this?  What can we learn from this?  As a Packer fan, we can learn to get the old refs back.  But as a Christian, I am constantly amazed at the way two people can look at the same event, but see it in two totally different ways.  A setback in life is viewed as either a crisis or a chance for God to prove His faithfulness.  When things are good, that is either a result of our human effort or the blessing of God.  And when it comes to controversial issues, we see, for example, how an unwanted pregnancy is viewed as either an inhuman fetus or a child that God created.  The same event, but two completely different worldviews which produce two completely different lives.  It is important to remember that not everyone sees the world the same way, and yet at the end of the day there is still that sense that somewhere in all of this should be something objective. 

Two officials watching the same play.

Two people experiencing the same heartache.

Two worldviews colliding over scientific interpretation.

Just like the replay gave us the chance to see the truth last night, the Bible gives us a way to see all things from God’s point of view.  Then we see the objectivity of a Biblical worldview and no longer have to depend on our own perspective but can see our lives form His.

Packers Win!

Last night was so awesome. I have been saying it for weeks, and it happened. The Packers beat the Steelers in the Super Bowl. I had the pleasure of watching the big game at our Youth Super Bowl party. There were snacks, three screens, lots of friends, and a great game. It really came down to the end, but the Packers held on and did a great job.

As a Packer fan, I was so excited when they won. And for the team, I’m sure the celebration is still in full swing (I saw on twitter that Aaron Rogers was in a parade at Disney World today). But for me, the excitement is already starting to fade. It was fun while it lasted, and it was a great time last night, but now it is over. The build up and the hype are done, the game has happened, and now it just means I have to wait several months to start enjoying Packer football again.

I think in life we wish things could last forever but the reality is that they just can’t. Events come and go, relationships happen and then they end. Things change, times pass, and people move on. Even memories and photographs fade with time. But as a believer, I know that everything happens for a purpose, and that God wants to teach us something through everything that happens to us. And when we learn the lesson that God has to teach us, that can last forever.

For more on this, check out OASIS this Wednesday at Calvary

Go Pack Go!

I love the Green Bay Packers. My family is from Wisconsin and over they years they have been a great team to root for. I have gone through ups and downs, good seasons and bad. Since I work on Sunday, I don’t get to watch as much football as I would like, and the Packers don’t come on TV here all the time. I have to tape the games and watch them later, and this season every time Green Bay was on Television, someone or something ruined the games outcome before I could watch.

But not this week. This week I got to see the Packers go head to head with their rival Bears and take them down, in their own house, to go to the Super Bowl. I will never forget watching that game saying “this is happening, we are going to go to the Super Bowl.” I could not believe that we won. I’ve been to a lot of Super Bowl parties in recent years, but never have I been so excited than about this one. The team I pull for is actually going, and there is more on the line this time than every before, especially since all the kids in my youth group are rooting against me (which always seems to happen, no matter what team I choose).

As I was celebrating this, I started to think about the way I talk about my favorite football team. When the Packers win, I say “we won,” but when the Packers lose I say “they lost.” I think this is because as people, we like to associate ourselves with winning and disassociate ourselves with losing. We want people to think of us as winners, not losers. We want to lump ourselves in with the people that win, and yet we try to pretend we don’t know the people who lose.

Isaiah 53:3, when talking about Jesus, says: He was hated and rejected; his life was filled with sorrow and terrible suffering. No one wanted to look at him. We despised him and said, "He is a nobody!" Jesus wasn’t a winner, not by the standards that we so often follow. Sure, He was God in the flesh, but few people saw Him that way. Most saw Him as a loser. It was the “winners” who tried to stop Him and eventually had Him killed. We work so hard to be a winner, and yet it seems like Jesus did everything He could to show us through His own life that all that stuff doesn’t really matter. It’s the heart of a person that has been changed that matters, and that’s when we really win.