Winning

It happens every October. Some know it as the Fall Classic. Officially, it is the World Series, the baseball contest that determines the best in professional baseball. The first team to win four games is crowned the World Champion.

Frankly, the series has always captured my attention, but rarely, if ever, my heart. That’s because I grew up as a Chicago Cubs fan. For 52 baseball seasons in a row, the Cubs have disappointed me (I likely didn’t care much about the Cubs in my infancy or early childhood, but I have no proof of that). Their morbid consistency has fueled objectivity about October that made watching the series a head and not a heart experience.

Enter the Colorado Rockies. The National League Champion Colorado Rockies. Across the wounds of catastrophic collapse, underachievement, predictable disappointment, my home team has emerged. For once my head and my heart are dancing together in late October. For once I know how a winning team can change the focus and the emotion of millions of people in a typically disconnected culture. Winning provides hope, it feeds optimism, it quiets the skeptics and it unites enemies. Unfamiliar names become household heroes. Championships do that.

This lesson has exposed a deeply rooted theological parallel in my life. I’m afraid that I’ve lived my life as a Chicago Cubs Christian. I’ve undervalued victory.

Not any more. When Jesus declared that He was “the victor,” He meant it. Always and forever. Death, the ultimate final game, lost in decisive fashion to Jesus. When it looked hopeless, when pain and pessimism washed over the dreams of His followers, Jesus delivered.

There’s something about a championship. It’s what ignites our worship, what fans the fainting embers of our hope, and it is what will occupy the time we share together in eternity. The ticker tape parade to beat all ticker tape parades. He is the champion, and finally I can imagine what the party will be like.

Go Rockies.