Life is War
I am a Redskins fan. It is part of who I am. Loving sports is also part of who I am. I find sports and athletes’ performances inspiring. I love the window competitive sports provides into humanity and the grind of competitive life.
Life is war.
Because sports is a window into the war of life, you can look at the hard lessons of other men, like in the case Steve McNair’s murder, without judging. In his shoes, it could have easily been me. He gave in to the temptation to marital infidelity. It happens everyday, and it’s tragic. But when you remember McNair is a sports figure, it is easy to see how our culture goes too far with sports. It is not fighting the good fight. Do we not see that idolizing our athletes can actually be an enabler for their self-destructive habits?
They deserve honor and respect for all their work, but when we over-elevate them, we only set them up. That is an American poverty of cultural character.
There is something about civilized life that can mask deep human conflict, the overcoming process we all face. Is not not one reason why we love Sundays, to relish the brute fact of human competition? Are not each of us aiming to triumph over what aims to defeat us?
For my Christian friends who disregard sports, let me say that I do not find the basic competitiveness of life at all antithetical to my faith as a Christian. Indeed, Christ Himself set His face like flint to Jerusalem, where He was to be sacrificed for the sins of the world. Along the way, He would be surrounded by friends ready to fight for Him, but they all left hkm alone to face wrongful accusation and death.
And He ultimately overcame every opposition to His unique calling, established in what theologians call The Covenant of Redemption, before the foundation of the world. He was crucified before the foundation of the world in the Plan of God, but 2,000 years ago He had to fulfill that Plan and endure the wrath of God for human sin.
Sports is not the only window into human competition, but it is one of the best. For life is war, and it is a team sport.
For the Christian, Christ won the war to make a team, which we call the Church. His war was our peace, the basis for what John Stott calls “A New Society,” for He has given all men a chance to be reconciled to our Maker, and he set the whole of human history on a redemptive track until all things are united in Christ (Ephesians 1:9-10). The basis of this New Society is blood-bought freedom. In other words, it comes to us through competition, through war.
For the Christian, all remaining wars to be fought find their place under the peace Christ has already won.
What Does that Have to do with Jason Campbell?
Jason Campbell has expressed his faith in God in this video in a public way. Though I am in no position to really know the condition of this man’s faith, I do know that for those who are reconciled to God in Christ, you then have God as your Father, and your fellowship with others is based in something deeper than this world offers. And when God is your Father, He is ever at work to make you more like Christ. He cares more about that than anything else in our lives.
Seen rightly, this new relationship to God and others is the Christian’s great competitive edge. But it takes time to refine it, and God’s timetable is not ours.
There are great full-time sports analysts out there–Michael Wilbon, Mike Wise, and Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post are my favorites–but one thing that is missing is an appreciation for Divine Order. Divine Order is God’s order of events, based on His revealed priorities. And even the briefest study of the Bible makes it clear God’s greatest priority in the world is to make Himself known through Christ, as revealed in His Word.
When a person turns away from sin and turns to God in Christ, the war is on. Sin does not get the memo that its stranglehold on our lives is broken. It seeks to oppress us and others through us all the time. God sets Himself to work in us, and as Philippians 2 teaches, He also calls us to work with Him to fight our sin, to make the choices only we can make, and over time to accurately reflect Him.
All of us, all of us, are uniquely made in the image of God.
Sports, for me, is a window into this two-front war: the spiritual war against sin and the natural war against all those impediments to our highest and best achievements. And if you know the Redskins, you know they have a long history of Christian leadership who have fought both wars well, and have inspired so many non-Christians to aim high and work hard to better reflect God’s image.
There is a divine order in this two-front war. God cares about the natural war, and this includes Dan Snyder and the business of running the Redskins, but the Redskins organization has an end date. The people do not.
And my sense of Jason Campbell is that he is ready to break through, to humbly but boldly move forward in a way that will not imperil his soul the way so many others have fallen short. For which is worse, to lose a Super Bowl or lose one’s soul? That question tells you all about God’s good and loving priorities for us, once we submit to Him.
War is about leadership. The Redskins have some great leaders on this team. One need not be a Christian to be an outstanding leader of men. But if one is a Christian, one is signing up not only to achieve the team’s goal, but to accurately reveal the grace and truth of Jesus Christ. Christ’s standard of perfection is the most difficult constraint, but also the greatest source of freedom, for the Christian leader. For He has already won the war.
I have made my prediction about the Redskins in the previous post. But football seasons come and go. I really do not care that much, in the eternal scheme of things. But what I am very interested in this season is the maturation of Jason Campbell. I will outline many of the reasons why over the course of the year. I will be chronicling the ups and downs, looking for the kinds of breakthroughs that only can take place on the field, in the battle, with arms locked with one’s teammates.
I can’t wait. I really can’t. As an aspiring Christian leader eager to serve all people, not just Christians, with the truth and love of Christ in my heart and the vision of God’s future promises in my eyes. I am praying for Jason, pulling for Jason, and believing in God’s slow, patient work in Jason. We need a leader like Jason to rally around, and in Washington DC he could really be unrivaled in his popular influence, besides, of course, one other leader who resides in our area. Call Jason a strategic leader, in that sense.
But what I love about what I see in Jason is a steady confidence that is starting to burn bright. It makes me think of the undeniable promise of Proverbs 4:18, which I expect to see unfold before our eyes this season:
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
which shines brighter and brighter until full day.
