Praying For a Win

Duke University is a juggernaut in the world of men’s college basketball. They get the best players, have arguably the best coach and get the best media coverage. Which might explain why there are so many ‘ABD-ers’, as in ‘Anybody But Duke’ fans. So, on a Tuesday night in November, in a game which #1 Duke was favored with the most lopsided odds of the season, the boys of Stephen F. Austin (I don’t know; look it up) took on Duke.  A couple of hours later Duke was undefeated no more. In a last second play, SFA’s Nathan Bain made the shot heard round the basketball universe.

That’s interesting to basketball fans, but here is why everyone else should care, and why maybe God did too.

Nathan Bain is from the Bahamas. Hurricane Dorian decimated his family’s home, community and his father’s church and school.  A Go Fund Me page was set up to help. Before the upset of Duke the website had collected $2,000.00.  On the day after the UPSET OF THE YEAR (so far), the Bain fund had collected over $62,000.00. Now the church and school will be rebuilt, along with the community around it, and God will be worshipped and children will be educated.  SFA’s Bain says it best himself in an interview quoted by espn.com:

"That's really our main focus, to make sure everyone has a place to worship and to make sure the school is taken care of so these kids can get a proper education."

I don’t know if God cares whether SFA beat Duke, but I am guessing that God answered a lot of prayers that night in a way that very few expected.  And in the end, of course, God won.

The takedown of Duke by Stephen F. Austin will likely be lost in the hype of March Madness as Coach K leads his young team toward an NCAA Championship.  It will be remembered in the Bahamas for a long, long time.  And that, as they say, is why they play the game and why maybe, just maybe, God does care who wins.

"...the forgiveness of sins..."

Which is a harder concept for you to believe: (a) that God in Christ Jesus chooses to forgive sins and remember them no more;  (b) that your sins are forgiven; or, (c) that God forgives the sins of others?

You probably know the story of Jesus forgiving the convicted criminal.  The crook was being tortured to death on a cross next to the one on which Jesus was dying too. (Luke 23:33-43) The crook confessed his sins and his faith in the saving power of Christ. A death-bed conversion, we might suppose.  Could Jesus really forgive him? Would Jesus really forgive him?  If ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ are your answers, when you think about your life, are you able to really confess your sins; are you able to really believe that Jesus, on his Cross forgave your sins too? If ‘yes and ‘yes’, believe that there is a place in Paradise for you too. Really. Truly. “There is therefore no room to doubt that he is prepared to admit into his Kingdom all, without exception, who shall apply to him.” (John Calvin, Commentaries)

Your sins are never a burden too many or too big for God to forgive. Your sins are never a burden too few or too small to make the confession of them unnecessary.  It is never too soon to truly profess your belief in the forgiveness of sins. It is never too late to receive that forgiveness of sins. It is never too soon nor too late for your to extend the same forgiveness to someone else.

“A poet wrote of a man killed as he is thrown from his horse: ‘Betwixt the stirrup and the ground, Mercy I asked, mercy I found.’” (William Barclay, Commentaries)

The next time you recite the Apostle’s Creed, professing your faith in the forgiveness of sins, know that before the words slipped from your lips it happened.   

Go and do likewise.

"...the communion of saints..."

Standing shoulder to shoulder with people we may or may not know, the leader invites us to stand and to recite the words of our ancient faith.  Nearing the end of the Apostles’ Creed we declare our belief in the universal Church and then we glide through these words: ‘the communion of saints’.   There is never, in my experience anyway, a chance to stop and think about what we just proclaimed. If I was making a new custom for the church liturgy it would be this one:

“I believe in…the communion of the saints [SILENCE]”

In our hurriedness to get to the next item in the worship service, or because we have said it together so many times, we are at risk of failing to appreciate the glorious thought we proclaim. Because of our true faith, because we belong to this universal gathering of believers we know as the Church, we are bold to declare our ability to commune, communicate, experience community with all of the others whom God has ‘gathered, protected and preserved’ from the beginning of time until its end.

To say these words is to enter into a holy reunion with someone you love, to enter into what Samuel J. Stone calls ‘mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won.’  And as we call to mind the shapes of their faces, the sounds of their laughter, the smells of their favorite scents, the quirks of their unique spirits, we become one again with them in Spirit.

“Oh happy ones and holy!

Lord give us grace that we,

Like them the meek and lowly,

Oh high may dwell with Thee.” (Stone, The Church’s One Foundation)