Hope Springs Eternal

PLAY BALL!

Okay... I admit that I am excited that baseball season has started. The Seattle Mariners began yesterday with a win; so for now at least I rejoice over a team that is in first place and undefeated. Closer to home, my son's little league team has their first game this week too.

So, I thought I'd post here an article I wrote for the Calvin Presbyterian Church newsletter last month. Here it is...
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“Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” wrote the 18th century English poet, Alexander Pope. I wonder if Pope was a baseball fan, since hope is also the indomitable springtime sentiment of those longing to hear the crack of the bat and the call to “Play ball!” It doesn’t matter which team you root for this time of year; it is a season of hope for everyone. Right now, everybody’s unbeaten. Regardless of what their record was last season, every team gets to start fresh this season. And that kind of new beginning, quite frankly, is something we all hope for.

Perhaps that’s why professional baseball’s spring training resonates with a place deep inside me. There’s something spiritual to it. When I look back over the last season of my life, with all the wins and losses, a couple of home runs, and more strikeouts than I’d like to admit, I yearn for a fresh start. Something in me cries out for a “do-over,” a chance to swing for the fences once more. Can you relate to that? Is that something you hope for?

After one of the most dismal seasons in the history of God’s people, when they were swept away by a visiting team from a true evil empire (not the Yankees but the Babylonians), the prophet Jeremiah continued to hold out that hope springs eternal. Listen to his cry:

Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:
The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!”

Mercy delivered fresh to your door every morning – I like the sound of that! This is Good News: God’s love for you and for me isn’t conditioned on last season’s performance. God is powerful enough to give us a fresh start today, and God loves us enough to do it. So, like the ballplayers in Arizona and Florida this time of year, we too can begin a new season.

There’s another parallel between spring training and spiritual training that intrigues me. Spring training is a time to return to the fundamentals in preparation for the new season. Even grizzled veterans and future Hall-of-Famers go through the most basic of drills. Again and again they will practice running the bases, laying down bunts, hitting the cutoff man, or turning a double play. The goal is for these basics of the game to become routine and reflexive, a foundational part of how they’ll play the game throughout the season.

In this way, spring training is a lot like Lent. Lent consists of the forty days before Easter (not counting Sundays which commemorate the Resurrection), and traditionally been a time when Christians have heeded Jesus’ example by practicing the discipline of fasting and other forms of self-denial. In other words, Lent is a time to get back to the basics, specifically the fundamentals of our faith. During these weeks we remember that God in Christ embraced our pain and absorbed our sin and death on the Cross. We need to grasp for this truth and wrestle with its personal implications. Lent is a time for deep reflection. Acknowledge your brokenness before God. Confess your sin. Meditate upon what is means to die to yourself that you might live with Christ. And remember that as we share in His sufferings and become like Him in His death, we will also share in His glory and resurrection (Rom. 8:17; 1 Cor. 15:20-23; Php. 3:10-11).

If a faithfully observed Lent is like spring training, then Easter becomes opening day! On both of those days, hope fills the air with a sweet fragrance—either fresh cut grass or lilies—and the future calls us forward. For Christians, Easter morning, with the celebration of our Lord’s resurrection is the ultimate experience and celebration of hope. But like a full season of major league baseball, it is best when we prepare for it. Yes, hope springs eternal. And the name of hope is Jesus.

Did You See Him?

In yesterday's Easter message, we reflected on the two disciples who have an encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24). As he did with those two on the road, I believe that Jesus still reveals himself to ordinary followers in ordinary places; still seeks us out and comes to us; still rebukes us for being slow of heart; and still reveals his true identity to us at just the right time.

But that wonderful story also makes me ask, "How often am I standing face to face with the Master and I totally miss him? How often does Jesus go unrecognized in my day-to-day life?"

By way of illustration, I shared this story:

On January 12, 2007, a seemingly ordinary thing happened in a Washington, DC metro station during the morning rush hour. A young man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a Washington Nationals baseball cap positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money and began to play. For 45 minutes he played six classical pieces. Most people didn’t even notice him.

But this was no ordinary violinist. It was violin virtuoso Joshua Bell who was there as part of an experiment put together by the Washington Post. And he was playing no ordinary violin; it was a 1713 handcrafted Stradivarius violin reportedly worth over $3 million. Three days earlier, Bell had played to a full house at Boston’s Symphony Hall, where fairly good seats went for $100. But on this day, he collected just $32.17 for his efforts. And of the 1,097 people who passed by him, only 7 stopped to listen, and just one person recognized him.

So I continue to ruminate... What would I have done? I'm quite sure I would have just walked on by. But if I and so many others can miss the presence and beautiful gift of a master violinist, how much do we miss the presence and beautiful gifts of the Master of the universe?

O Lord, "I pray that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened in order that I may know the hope to which You have called me, the riches of Your glorious inheritance in Your people, and Your incomparably great power for us who believe." - Ephesians 1:18 (TNIV personalized).

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If you want to see the full article from the Washington Post, click here.