The Mystery of Faith and Baseball
Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again. Play ball.
Dear Trinity, Jesus' grace dear ones.
“The birth, death and resurrection of Jesus means that one day everything sad will come untrue.” J.R. Tolkien.
“Maybe next year.” 29 (out of 30) Major League Baseball teams and their fans every season after not winning the World Series.
It is tempting to think that the Christian life is that segmented religious part of life. Sectioned off from exercise, appointments, mowing-the-lawn, or watching baseball. We have our work-life, our family-life, our leisure-life, and our Christian-life. We think balance is holding each of the segments of our life, and giving each of them their due. But, really the Christian life can not be balanced. The Christian life is everything, everywhere, all-the-time. The Christian life is not a part of you-it is you. Your core identity. Your source. Your goal.
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1).
The temporal doesn't make sense of the eternal, but the eternal makes sense of the temporal. Opening day baseball is temporal, which doesn't make it worthless. It just isn't worthy of eternal hope. When we eternalize the temporal we load it heavy with crushing expectation, and it can not deliver. When we termporalize the eternal, we empty it (in our imagination) of the only power that can save. When we temporalize the temporal, we can enjoy it as a gift. When we eternalize the eternal, we can glory in it forever! I can sing and enjoy “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” because his “Sacred Head Was Wounded” and “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”
Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again. Play ball.
Nathan