John Fischer The Catch

I apologize in advance to those who are tired of my strange brand of devotional sports writing, but I simply can’t NOT write about this one. At least this time it’s not about baseball. On Saturday I am going to the USC v. Oregon NCAA football game at the Los Angeles Coliseum. (That’s University of Southern California, not University of South Carolina. It depends on where you live what USC means.)

The game has the make-up of a potential upset. Oregon is #1 in the nation in at least one poll and USC is #24, having lost two games to last second field goals. USC is also ineligible for a bowl game due to NCAA recruiting violations, so they really have nothing to lose except to knock off someone who does. This is actually a new position for them. They are most acquainted with being a top ten team who continually gets pressure from lesser teams as underdogs, playing their hearts out in an attempt to topple the big guys. Suddenly the shoe is on the other foot. Not that they have much of a chance beating a team as fast and multi-talented as Oregon, but you never know. The Trojan offense is capable of being on the field with Oregon but its defense is going to have to show up in a big way – something it hasn’t done so far this year. Being the underdog is humbling and also can be character-building.

Wearing the shoe on the other foot is something we could all learn how to do better. We get so used to one way of seeing things that we have no idea how someone else sees the world. Nor can we tolerate someone else’s position if we can only see ours.

An opinion column in the paper yesterday pointed out how universities foster a very liberal take on diversity that places a high value on tolerance as long as one does not have to tolerate the conservative point of view. So how diverse are we at the end of the day if we can only see and think like liberals? The whole idea of having two political parties is to get a broader perspective on everything. And shouldn’t the university be a place that fosters a breadth of views?

The apostle Paul was willing to be “all things to all men” for the purpose of saving some. Certainly he would want us to be well versed in all perspectives for the same reason.

If USC can win on Saturday, it would be a major upset, unless, of course, you are from South Carolina, in which case USC had better win, since the Gamecocks are favored by 17.5 points over Tennessee. It all depends on your perspective.

I was with Chandler recently when we saw a rainbow (a rare occurrence in southern California, I might add) and he blurted out, “I think that means to me God’s happy.”

Mind you, he and I do not have a running commentary about God. As part of his new home schooling program, I am teaching him “The Bible as Literature” and that is going relatively well, but I can’t say that he brings up God as a normal part of the conversation, so this kind of comment, out of nowhere, was a total delight.

Not to mention that he is right, too. A rainbow means that God is happy. In reference to the Bible as Literature, the rainbow was a sign to Noah that God would never again destroy the earth by water. Chandler’s insight that God is happy about that is brilliant, and a testimony to how much kids know that we don’t know they know.

That the rampant wickedness on the earth required God to destroy so much of what he had created and start over with one good man called Noah was something that brought God no amount of pleasure. “For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone,” he proclaimed through his prophet Ezekiel. “Repent and live!” (Ezekiel 18:32)

Some people think God is a sort of killjoy who takes great pleasure in meeting out his justice on all unrighteousness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Peter echoes the prophecy of Ezekiel when he wrote: “The Lord is not slow about His promise [about returning to judge the world], as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9) That’s the real heart of God toward us. Give us as much time as possible to turn to him.

It was no coincidence that the oldest man living as recorded in the scriptures was Methuselah. He lived 969 years and his name meant: “when he dies, it shall be sent.” In other words, Methuselah was a walking billboard for the end of the world as they knew it. And God let that sign speak for 969 years. Fair warning. Seven days after Methuselah died the floods came.

God is going to have to pass judgment again on the world someday, but there’s not going to be any fun in it. What’s fun is hanging rainbows in the sky and promising to never again flood the earth. That made God happy, just as Chandler called it.

What makes God happy is when we repent – when we change our minds and turn to him, because that means he can give us life.

You have to know my wife to fully appreciate this, but she is an event coordinator before she is anything else. She loves a party and will throw one at the drop of a hat. So earlier this week, she managed to turn a monthly dinner she helps coordinate at a local women’s homeless shelter into an “unbirthday” party that would have made the Mad Hatter proud. Acting on the assumption that these women most likely had not celebrated their own birthday in some time, she set out to change that.

Tables were decorated in a playing card theme, birthday cakes were donated, a gift was provided for each one, and even “Alice” made an appearance to sing a song.

I was dubious as to how all this would be received, but I found out that was my own cynical nature kicking in. They had nothing of the kind in mind. They were thrilled, and participated fully, singing happy birthday to themselves and treasuring their gifts – many putting it back in the box it came in so they could unwrap it all over again. Yes, I saw even the hardest among them soften, and one of those was me.

The end result of all this was a rather bizarre mixture of sadness and joy. The sadness I spoke of yesterday was still there. These are dignified women made in God’s image, and they should not be in this situation. And yet, for a moment, that sadness was covered up by the joy of celebration and the fact that they were given, even if only for a moment, the dignity that life had stolen from them. Marti gave us a chance to kick at the sadness, and we did.

“God made everything! When God made the first man, Adam, he lived in the Garden of Eden with his wife, Eve. They were perfectly happy obeying God and enjoying His presence until one day…”

So begins lesson two of an online Bible survey program for kids. This one is obviously about the fall from the garden, but the title intrigued me: “The Start of Man’s Sadness.”  I wasn’t expecting something so thought provoking at this level.

Most lessons about the fall talk in terms of sin, rebellion and disobedience – and these are certainly important factors – but “The Start of Man’s Sadness” makes me cry.

First of all, it’s just the start. How could Adam and Eve have known that their choices would result in an oil spill in the gulf, a war in Afghanistan, a missing child, or my inability to find my keys this morning? And what of the ramifications of my choices today? Were they mapped out over the course of my life, what would the sum total be? Could I even contain it? It’s just the start, but look how far it goes!

And then there’s the sadness. We can’t escape this. Even with God’s grace and forgiveness, we still have to live with the sadness. For all our sin, rebellion and disobedience, the tragedy is the sadness – that deep inner aching that what we are experiencing is a long way from what we were meant to experience. For Adam and Eve it was the start of the sadness; for us, it is the realization of it.

Jesus was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He knew about the sadness and he felt it every day.

And how does this help me today? It helps me understand the world, and it helps me empathize with those around me. Yes, Jesus put away the sadness once and for all on the cross, but we still have to live in it, for now.

My list of reasons yesterday as to why Jesus would single out children as particularly suited for heaven was by no means complete. Some of you have already submitted other entries, and more additions are encouraged. [By the way, our link to comments is found by clicking on “Visit the Catch online” at the bottom of this email. Comments can be accessed at the bottom of each devotional.]

It hit me yesterday that I had failed to include one of the most important areas where kids have it all over us adults, and that would be in the area of creativity.

One of the requisites of a creative mind is the ability to see things from a fresh perspective. This is where the kids come in. Children don’t have the realistic limits on their imaginations that adults have. They can put things together any way they want. And even though they may be outside the realm of the possible, nevertheless, unfettered imaginations can spark new approaches to tired old problems.

I am suddenly thinking of the time they brought a blind man to Jesus and he spat on the man’s eyes, touched him and asked if he could see anything, to which the man replied, “I see men as trees, walking” (Mark 8:24). Although Jesus placed his hands on the man’s eyes again, and this time he saw clearly, I wonder if he might have been at all tempted to leave the man with his walking trees. Walking trees are a kind of refreshing change to seeing people walking around like they always do. C.S. Lewis created walking trees in his Chronicles of Narnia and I’m sure it was thinking like a child that gave him the idea. Children would have no problem with walking trees. That’s the type of imagination they have all the time.

Thank goodness Jesus didn’t grab a 30 year-old man and say, “Unless you become as one of these, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.”

No, it’s the children he wants us to emulate. Why do you suppose?

Here are some possibilities:

Kids don’t have to be right.

Kids will try anything.

Kids don’t care about their reputations.

Kids don’t care about skin color, nationality, religion or politics.

Kids can make mistakes.

Kids don’t hold grudges.

Kids forgive and forget.

Kids don’t keep score.

Kids can make friends with anybody.

Kids don’t know the value of money.

Kids don’t care what the trends are.

Kids trust, hope, and believe.

“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)

Anyone who witnessed on TV or even read about the rescue of 33 Chilean miners last week has been introduced to a powerful picture of baptism and what it represents in one’s journey of faith.

Buried alive for 69 days, these fortunate workers were hoisted 2,041 feet through a tunnel in a narrow pod, from which they surfaced, one at a time, to the light of television cameras and the welcome arms of family and friends. 33 times this happened and the joy and exuberance was no less when number 33 arrived than when the first one did. Each new face – each new embrace – was like the first. We could still be doing this and it would never get old.

There was truly something unique in the fact that the amount of time it took for the pod to descend and return with a new survivor insured that the rescue of each miner would be a separate, anticipated event. And knowing the inherent dangers of heavy equipment and unstable earth meant that none of these rescues was guaranteed. Who’s to say that after 32 successful rescues, something could go wrong with number 33. So each one was an event worth celebrating. Each one was like one coming back from the dead.

Which is exactly what happens when new believers are baptized. Each person is a universe saved. Each one is a child of God, made in his Image and redeemed by his blood. And each one comes up out of the water one at a time. This is individual and personal, but celebrated and shared by all the saints and angels and forgiven sinners waiting on the shoreline for that watery pod to birth a new life of faith.

These are great pictures to reflect upon as we consider our own faith journey. For all of us, it’s as if it happened today, and our life, due to God’s grace and Christ’s sacrifice is as brand new today as when we went down in the water however long ago or recent that was, and came up in newness of life. That, my friend, is what it means to be buried alive.

Well I have heard of some unusual habits around receiving and reading the Catch, but this one takes the cake. Steve has his Blackberry by his bed and it sounds off when new emails come through. Being that he is in the Midwest, it is usually around 4:30 in the morning when the Catch shows up. For some reason he is trained to hear his Blackberry vibrate (twice) and he almost always picks it up and proceeds to read the new Catch in bed. Well that means keyboard sounds and light from his screen, which is enough to wake up his wife, who is in no mood for catching anything at that hour.

“Will you shut that thing off?” She apparently says this every morning like a ritual. Steve, meanwhile, is praying, “LORD, teach me how to frame my day.” Two different people… two different reactions… one bed. Isn’t life fun together?

If you have an interesting story about how the Catch fits into your day, we would love to hear it. Write me privately in reply to this email or click below to have your comment posted with others who write in. An autographed copy of my latest music CD goes to the one we like the best.

I wish you could be here with me. I’m at the Grounds Cafe in Long Beach, working while Chandler is being tutored. I am fully equipped – stuck in a corner with my computer plugged into the only wall socket in the café, iPhone plugged into computer, and earphones plugged into iPhone. A small white rosebud on the table peeks over the back of my laptop screen providing a charming touch with the natural world in all this technology.

Up walks an elderly woman (easily in her eighties) dressed in red and commenting on how I have brought my home office with me. Then she tells me she finally got a computer and is starting computer school this week. “My husband has managed to have nothing to do with computers. He’s afraid that if he gets started, he won’t know when to stop.” Obviously that kind of thinking has not stopped his dear wife. She has the look and the spunk of someone who plans to keep on going indefinitely.

Hey, if she can do it, we can, too. Whatever it is, be it a bad habit, an old tape, an unhealthy pattern, an unconquerable sin, or a new skill, it’s doable in the power of the Holy Spirit. Just think of this lady, off to her next computer class. She’s an inspiration. Not to mention she’s the one who struck up the conversation with me.

[Correction: Some of our baseball experts have pointed out that I was wrong about the Bill Buckner play (see yesterday’s Catch). The score was tied at the time. Had he made the play, the game would have gone into the 11^th inning. The truly remarkable thing about that game is that the score was 5-3 Red Sox with two outs in the 10^th inning and nobody on base. Three consecutive singles and a wild pitch tied the game. Buckner’s error allowed the winning run, but they had four chances to get the final out before that even happened, which makes it rather unfair that Buckner gets all the blame.]

I have a baseball autographed by Bill Buckner in my collection. It was sent to me by a friend of Buckner’s who reads the Catch and goes to the same Baptist church as he does in Idaho. I have written some about Buckner and thus the connection. Though Brooks Conrad’s error Sunday in Atlanta’s playoff game against San Francisco has been compared to Bill Buckner’s error in the 1986 World Series, it really doesn’t come close. Buckner wins the most devastating error award hands down. Had Conrad made his play, the game would have been tied and sent into extra innings. Had Buckner made his play, the game would have been over, and the Red Sox would have won the Series. As it was, his error let in two runners and they lost the game sending the Series into a seventh game. The fate of the whole Series swung on that one play.

But there’s another story few people know about that puts God’s purposes squarely in the middle of this event. Author Michael O’Connor was watching that game in 1986 on his television, a young man struggling with believing in God. He had a fiancé who had become a Christian and desired that he join her in faith, but Michael had been stubborn in his resistance. But for some strange reason, as he watched that sixth game of the World Series between the Mets and the Red Sox, his own faith became strangely connected to its outcome. Through most of the game, the Red Sox had the lead and the control, but then in the final innings, things started to unravel to such an extent that Buckner’s error was not alone. There were other errors, misjudgments, pass balls, wild pitches – it was as if the Red Sox were doing their darnedest to lose their advantage.

As Michael tells the story, he saw the fate of his faith hanging in the balance. If the Red Sox lost this game – something that seemed almost impossible until the very end – they would be forcing a seventh game, and a seventh game, just like Michael’s faith, had to come down on one side or the other. There would be no more speculation, no more possibilities, no more sitting on the fence. And somehow, in the impending finality of that seventh game, Michael knew he had to make his decision whether to believe in Jesus or not. Which he did, and wrote a poem about it called “The Seventh Game.”

Now am I saying God moved franchises and regions and baseball history just to accommodate Michael’s decision? Not necessarily, but why couldn’t that have been one of a hundred thousand other things he was wrapping up in that chain of events? Don’t you ever wonder how strangely marvelous is his hand in the events of our lives, and how, in the wonder of his wisdom, he is accomplishing so many things at once? If Bill Buckner’s error played a part in bringing one man into the kingdom of God, then it suddenly doesn’t seem so tragic or pathetic. It just seems wildly miraculous. And if that is true about one error, couldn’t it be going on in all the seemingly random events of our lives? There is a loving hand in the shadows arranging things we could never know.