There was a certain other blogger who wrote about an incident he had at a premier fast food restaurant. He mused at a loyal fan’s dedication to his basketball team of choice. In Los Angeles, you would be wise not to wear a San Antonio Spurs jersey, not during the playoffs, not ever. And since the NBA Finals are going on, iIwould rather wear the sign John Mclain wore in “Die Hard with a vengeance” through the inner-city rather than a Boston Celtics jersey. Of course that’s a gross exaggeration, but you don’t know true Lakers fans.
So what relavance does this have to your life? Some of you never watched a basketball game for its full 48 minutes, so why would this incident matter at all? Well this morning, I was reading the Gospel of John, (a good place to start a summer Bible reading program if any) and got to the part of the whole “For God so loved the World” etc and continued reading. (Just a sidenote, but i always wondered if John was actually at the meeting with Nicodemus, or if Jesus told him what happened after the meeting verbatim)
Well immediately after the whole John 3:16 part that we all love and hold dear, Jesus says “For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” (John 3:20-21) I usually skip past this part not because it isn’t deep or anything, but after reading John 3:16 and letting it soak in, i usually can’t take much more from God. But today it caught my eye, and i was able to kinda piece it together with that whole story of that lonely Spurs fan in that fast food restaurant. If our lives as disciples of Christ would be as passionate as this man is about a team that doesn’t even know his name nor care about his well-being, would we get the same reaction as this man did from the workers and from this blogger? Would they peer at us as if we just “didn’t get it”? Would we get snickers and jeers from those who are in the dark? I’m not advocating we should all gear up in outlandish Christian clothing while getting in our cars to bump hackneyed worship music to obnoxious levels. But as Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 3:3, “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”
So it is not with what’s on the outside but it matters the world who we identify with on the inside. He was a Spur’s fan, and I am a disciple of Jesus. That is how I see myself, and i wonder if that’s how the world sees me. I’m sure there would be tension in Mr. Spurs heart if he made a choice in not wearing his jersey for the sole reason that people would torch him all over L.A. That he would be betraying a team that he feels so strongly for. How ironic how sometimes we as christians (myself included) would take off our imaginary Jesus jersey when it is inconvienient to be his disciple. I’m a Laker’s fan all the time, when I am with other Laker fans and especially with Laker haters. But i can’t count all the times when i omitted Jesus from my conversations when i thought it wasn’t prudent. Today’s reading was a sad splash of reality for me, and hopefully you were blessed reading through these scattered thoughts of obedience and disobedience. Though i never denied Jesus as Peter did, but it sure feels like it.
Maybe one of the days i should pick up a Celtics jersey just to remember how it feels to be not of this world.
