Today the under-performing Kansas Jayhawks lost once again in the NCAA tournament to an over-achieving mid-major. If you're a KU fan these losses don't get any easier to take. And, like every other year, I walk away from the television set unsettled and bothered.
I'm bothered that a bunch of McDonald's All Americans can miss more free throws than the guys in the over-50 league at the YMCA. I'm bothered that I wasted yet another March weekend watching basketball on pins and needles when I could have been making sure my zero-turn mower will work in April. I'm bothered that my tournament bracket is in a lower percentile nationally than my 5th grade Iowa Test of Basic Skills. I'm bothered (a lot) that other teams' fans seem to take more joy in a KU loss than a win for their own team.
But perhaps what bothers me most is the simple fact that I am bothered at all. I care too much. My hope, unfortunately, rests too much upon the outcome of a game played and coached by people that I do not know. My affections are misplaced; my joy (or sorrow) dependent upon the results of a contest in which I have no control.
When the pain cuts acutely, I realize that I've put my hope in something that cannot ultimately satisfy. I've sought a counterfeit joy and trusted in a temporal vapor. It seems that in any adversity, no matter how apparently insignificant (e.g. a basketball game), our idols are exposed. We may not worship a golden calf, but we seek joy, acceptance, comfort, peace, and security in things that are fleeting, in "stuff" that is passing away.
The late Christian artist Rich Mullins, in his song If I Stand, penned these words: "The stuff of Earth competes for the allegiance I owe only to the Giver of all good things." God was merciful to me today in bringing this song to mind when I turned on my ipod after the game. He was also gracious to remind me that even more dangerous than the idolatry exposed in me after a troublesome loss, is the less obvious idolatry that goes unnoticed after a glorious victory.
You might think my conclusion to all of this introspection would be a suggestion to jettison all sports and to pursue a life of contemplative reflection on loftier things. It's not. I think sports are certainly one of the pleasures with which God has richly blessed us. But his blessings, unchecked, can become our most deadly adversaries.
I find it ironic that the Apostle Paul often used athletic metaphors to drive home his most critical spiritual points. And while I don't suggest this means Paul gave tacit approval to sports, he certainly acknowledged them as part of his society and evidently thought they provided illustrations with which his audience would be familiar. In I Corinthians 9:24-25 he writes: "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable." (ESV)
And it's in Paul's words that I'm brought back to the root of my problem and the source of my disappointment. I've chased after the perishable wreath--the wreath, along with this year's (and 2008's) NCAA Championship trophy, that will eventually burn with all the temporal "stuff" of this Earth.
So let us pursue the imperishable wreath. Let us pursue the prize being guarded in Heaven which, as the Apostle Peter said, is "imperishable, undefiled, and unfading" (I Peter 1:4).
I'm sure I'll watch the tournament again next year and chances are I will be bitterly (hopefully less so) disappointed again. But I trust that disappointment, along with all others, will point me to Jesus Christ, the lamb whose blood ransoms me, and the only true One who will never disappoint.
Enjoy this Rich Mullins video from 1987 where he sings If I Stand....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K93ebKnmhs&feature=BF&playnext=1&list=QL&index=1
