In 2002, March Madness brought three young men from Greenville, Illinois, to Boiling Springs, North Carolina. The women’s basketball team from Greenville College traveled to Gardner-Webb University for the Nation Christian College Athletic Association championship tournament. Jason, one of the three, was a player on the Greenville Panthers men’s team. He was invited to be color commentator for the radio broadcast back in Northern Illinois.
Jason grew up on his family farm a few miles south of Chicago. Recently, we enjoyed a meal of fried green tomatoes and shrimp and grits together. It didn’t take long for that Yankee farm boy to get up to his elbows in good Southern victuals.
I built a fire in our fireplace, popped a bowl of popcorn, and reclined in the recliner. I settled in to watch the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. Outside my window we were being treated to a gentle snowfall.
The broadcast from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, was entertaining. The high tech visual display went off almost without a hitch. The choreography was flawless, but the mood was somber. On opening day of the Olympics, a young athlete from the nation of Georgia died in a practice run for the luge.
After the ceremonies were over and Wayne Gretzky had lighted the Olympic Flame, I checked the snow accumulation in my backyard. Though a few fluffy flakes were still falling we already had more than three inches.
I sat by the dying embers of the fire pondering the agony and the ecstasy of sport. Maybe that is why so many of us are drawn to the Winter Olympics, even those of us who rarely see snow and ice. Longtime sports broadcaster Jim McKay coined the phrase, “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” The Olympics in Vancouver will provide both.
Always at this time in the service, there is a silence. People settle in their seats. Some turn up their hearing aids; others turn them down. You wait to see if anything worth hearing will be said. You wonder what is coming as an average-sized man stands here, shuffling note cards like a riverboat gambler.
To be very honest with you, I sit here on this bench and worship as you do. I am still amazed that you trust me with this responsibility. It is one I do not take for granted. It is a privilege, a very awesome responsibility, to speak on God’s behalf and offer something that can be meaningful to us as we seek to be the Christians that God wants us to be.
Today during this season of Lent, we enter into a new series entitled Encounters with Jesus on the Way to the Cross. We will return to some of the most familiar passages in the Gospel accounts. This time, though, we will look at certain events as intersections in the life of Jesus, points at which Jesus had to make major decisions.
