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There is something so hope-filled about the month of March. You can keep your “March Madness”. College basketball doesn’t do it for me. I prefer the March return of baseball teams to their training facilities to gear up for the new season. For the month every team is absolutely equal. There is no first place or last place--every team is potentially a winner, in the hearts of their fans. Even loyal Red Sox fans cannot help but feel, “You know, I think this might be the year!”
Of course, all teams are not equal. We begin to study rosters and realize that “on paper”, some teams seem better than others. “On paper”, however, doesn’t get you to the World Series. The season still has to go on. The actual games have to be played. Then the surprises begin. Some teams which looked great “on paper”, $100 million+ payrolls, big name stars, past championships (think the New York Mets), never pan out. Other teams with smaller payrolls, an absence of stars, and no recent success (think the Minnesota Twins), come out of nowhere to win their division.
The Christian life doesn’t get played on paper. We have to live it. It is a struggle. Things that looked great in the Bible, the words of Jesus, the faith of the ancestors, seem so much harder and more complicated when we bring them out onto the field of real life. It has always been so. Go into a bookstore and pick up a copy of Philip Yancey’s book Disappointment with God (Zondervan, 1988). He writes to help people who experience a large gap between what they expect from their faith and what they experience. He shows that part of that gap is based on a misreading of what is “on paper.”
Of course, the biggest dark horse of all is the man from Nazareth literally from nowhere (can anything good come from Nazareth?), was relegated to the minor leagues (read, “descended into hell”), and truimphed over death and sin to win the biggest victory of all. This story inspires us all as we play the game day-in and day-out.
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