OUT OF MY DEPTH
THE SPORTING TENSION
PRESSING ON TOWARDS THE TRUE PRIZE BY PHIL WAGLER
T
he Kansas City Chiefs won wins make for tales told for years Super Bowl LIV. It was their first and nostalgic online searches for bat championship in fifty years. The flips or overtime heroics. It all points next day, before downtown Kansas City to the wonderful mystery within us. hosted its parade or most fans sobered We are made to celebrate, created to up, betting began on who would win overcome; human beings do not want the 2021 Vince Lombardi Trophy. to lose. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers Where does that come from? It’s hoisted the 107th Grey Cup in 2019. part of the image of God in us. We even It was their first win since 1990— long to overcome the grave! It’s what the year of East and West German was won for us through Jesus Christ, reunification. If you can’t remember or as the old theologian Gustaf Aulen when Germany was East and West, summed Him up: Christus Victor. The chances are you won’t remember tense, anticipatory longing to win that when Tom Burgess erupts into thunderous quarterbacked either. ovation points to a larger SO, CHEER YOUR I’m a sports fan with celebration shouted by TEAM! LET EVERY a gift for remembering the Apostle Paul, “But VICTORY INSPIRE useless information, thanks be to God! He gives according to my lovely us the victory through A PRESSING ON bride. I recall random our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 TOWARD THE TRUE stats like Dave Collins Corinthians 15:57). PRIZE IN CHRIST. stealing 60 bases for Sports, it seems to me, the 1984 Toronto Blue direct our vision upward Jays. (Yes, I actually remembered that!) to a greater victory that we all long for. How can I conjure up such worthless After all, we seem to know that every items but struggle to memorize championship in this world is very, Scripture or know the name of that very, very fleeting. guy I see at church every week? Sports—especially at its absolute Sports are enormously engaging pinnacle—are fleeting. Winners and just as fleeting. This is the become next year’s target. Champions tension that both awakens a fire in get rings, but rings get auctioned, and us and simultaneously exposes our the people who laud the victors will shallowness. just as quickly boo if next year turns There is something beautiful, into a debacle. Sports remind us that unifying, and inspiring in sports. many of life’s expenditures can be Teamwork. Overcoming odds. utterly and ultimately meaningless, as Amazing physicality. The thrill of the preacher of Ecclesiastes bemoans victory. The heart-wrenching, kick- (Ecclesiastes 1:1-2). in-the-gut defeats that make those Furthermore, when you add up victories so thrilling. Comeback the absolute injustice of the amount
30 SEVEN SPRING 2020
of money and time thrown at sports and the “idols” worshipped, it becomes even more distasteful. Stars make millions. The same fans that are screaming to sign a free agent, whatever the cost, can criticize a living wage for the poor or withhold generosity from churches and charities. Fans tweeting responses to a deadline trade seem unmoved by the plight of those suffering under political oppression – like East Germans were back in 1990 or as the Rohingya are today. So, we sporting types live a dichotomous tension. While the desire to win is a window into God-imitating overcoming victory in life, community, and eternity, our often too-blind fascination with fandom is a troubling indicator of our unaddressed brokenness and unthinking callousness. So, cheer your team! Let every victory inspire a pressing on toward the true prize in Christ (Philippians 3:14). And, when the losses mount, or the odds are stacked against your colours, wake up and repent of missing the mark and placing your hope and energy in all the wrong places.
/ PHIL WAGLER is North American Hub Co-ordinator for the Peace and Reconciliation Network and lead pastor of Kelowna Gospel Fellowship Church, BC. He’s also a Maple Leafs’ fan, so he’s had lots of opportunities to ponder the longing for victory and the wake-up call to what really matters.
