Baseball and the Gospel of Jesus

When I was a kid, my brother Jay, my best friend Jason and I were the cornerstones of our baseball team. I would play shortstop or pitch, Jay would catch, and Jason would play second base. We would play every inning all season, year after year. This created something of a problem because my dad was also the coach of our team. As is the case in many youth sports activities, the charge of nepotism was often muttered in the bleachers by upset mothers, wondering why their sons played only a few innings a game.

I remember once, when I was around fourteen years old, my dad was out of town for the weekend of a little league game. My dad’s friend Rob had been an assistant coach for him since we were a little year or so too old for tee ball, and he had taken over the duties for that Saturday morning.

Now, Rob had been hearing the same complaints from the same parents for all those years. In the interest of keeping the peace, Rob had decided that day to start the game with Jay, Jason, and I on the bench.

Of course, when the three of us saw the lineup, we were understandably puzzled, and asked Rob why we were the odd men out for the first times in our lives. After he leveled with us, treating us with the respect of adults, we all had a good laugh and settled in to watch our friends play ball.

After only a few innings, our second-string lineup had amassed a swath of strike outs and had committed a comedy of errors, putting us into a humungous, seemingly insurmountable hole. All the while, the three of us sat patiently beside, cheering our teammates on, even in their collective weakness.

At the same time, Rob was also watching the mothers in the stands begin to understand their progeny’s lack of playing time.

When he was convinced that his point was across, and with only an inning or two left in the game, our coach made three changes. Jay, Jason, and I resumed our positions and led our team back from our sizable early hole en route to easily winning the game.

Over the years, I would find myself in the bench warming position, so would see the game from the perspective of the “have-nots” of the athletic world. That can be a painful experience. You work, struggle, and wait for the job as a difference-maker, and you do your very best in the spots you are given to play.

It is a difficult thing to come to terms with the fact that your very best just is not good enough. It strips all pride away from you, or at least it would if you were bold enough to face the facts.

This is what God’s law does for us. It is really a good thing, a gift, that God has given us the 10 Commandments, among other direct commands in the bible. Maybe the reason we think the commands are a good thing is a bit skewed. Allow me to demonstrate.

Let's say I went to the courthouse and protested the taking down of the 10 Commandments at City Hall. I am upset that our code for living the Judeo-Christian ethic has been stripped away. How is anybody supposed to live if our city councilmen take away our freedom to live under the law?

Does that make any sense when put that way? Let us say it another way, “We cannot fulfill the law of God in any sense of the word”. It is as if we were that benchwarmer, sitting and wondering why we are not allotted our “God-Given” playing time.
If we ever needed evidence that we are utter failures at obeying God, all we need to do is to enter the game of life. Stop telling fans, your mother, the media, or your coach how good of a job you would do, given the chance to be a really good moral agent, and enter the game of life. If you are bold enough to face the facts, it will not be long before you realize that even the first of the 10 Commandments that you want proudly displayed at every city hall has condemned you.
Or can you honestly say that you have no problem placing other things before God?

No, the law of God was never intended to be a point of dutiful obedience. It would never give us success in right standing before God. It was not designed for this purpose.

The law of God does for us what Rob did for us those many years ago. The gift he gave was to simply let the benchwarmers have a shot at being the mainstays on the team. If they were bold enough to face the facts, they would welcome a change.

The law humbles us into welcoming a change into our lives. And the great news is that there is a change not only possible but provided for in the person of the God-Man Jesus Christ. He alone has completely, fully, and finally lived life in obedience to the revealed law of God.

If we would only let the law of God become a source of humility instead of pride in our lives, we could see the richness of a Christ who has taken care of all the obedience we owed to God in his life. Then he paid for our inabilities to fulfill the law in his death, purchasing new resurrection life, and sitting down at the right hand of the Father in our place!

Does the law of God arm you with pride? Perhaps you should enter the game of life. Does the law of God humble you, proving your insufficiency to please God? Run to the cross. Christ is there, pleading perfection on your behalf.

The game of life has already been won. Will you bemoan missed opportunities or rejoice in the God whose victory is your victory?