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Miracles Happen! Red Sox Win First World Series Since 1918! |
2004-11-01 |
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I am a baseball fan. My favorite team, the Chicago Cubs, did not make the playoffs this year, so I have been rooting for the Boston Red Sox, who have not won the World Series since 1918, when their best pitcher was Babe Ruth. (The Cubs have not won the World Series since 1908, or even played in the World Series since 1945, but that is another story). The Red Sox were down three games to none, and were three outs away from losing the fourth and final game in the American League Championship Series to their hated rivals, the New York Yankees. Then they accomplished something that has never been done before in the history of Major League Baseball. They came back from a three game deficit in a best-of-seven series to beat the Yankees four straight times and win the series. They figuratively came back from the dead, and went on to sweep the Cardinals in four games to win the World Series for the first time in eighty-six years.
What the Red Sox did seems pretty miraculous. They have supposedly been under a curse ever since the owner of the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees following the 1919 season. The “Curse of the Bambino” was that they would never again win the World Series (while the Yankees have won 26 championships since they acquired Babe Ruth and converted him from a pitcher to a right fielder).
Just like baseball teams, people are not supposed to come back from the dead either. A curse that has lasted for eighty-six years seems pretty permanent. Baseball is just a game, and no matter how much we root for our favorite team, whether they win or lose doesn’t really matter. Life and death are a different matter. Two thousand years ago the Romans crucified a man named Jesus of Nazareth in the usual way and his dead body was placed in a tomb. For the first time in the history of the world, a person came back from the dead. Jesus did something far more miraculous and infinitely more important than the Boston Red Sox unbelievable victory in the playoffs. Jesus came back three days after he had been placed in the tomb. Jesus came back, not to exact revenge on his killers or to punish his unfaithful disciples, but to remove the real curse of death, and to bring forgiveness and the promise of resurrection unto eternal life to everyone who believes in him. He made his disciples into saints.
The first day of November is All Saints Day, when we thank God for all the new saints who have entered the church through baptism in the past year and are promised victory over death and the devil. We thank God for all the saints who have died in the past year, and whom thanks to Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are promised that they will rise again. The curse is ended!
The Red Sox finally overcame the hated Yankees. The Red Sox winning the World Series (and ending the “curse of the bambino”) is a minor miracle that rewards the faith of their fans. God, in Jesus, has overcome death, sin and the devil. We can face death and the threat of our elimination without fear, knowing that God saves his saints and brings them back from the dead with Jesus, who has led the way for his people.
Because the Red Sox did something that has never been done before, there is hope for other teams facing elimination and impossible odds that maybe they can do it too. Because Jesus rose from the dead, we have more than hope. We have the promise that God will indeed give us the final victory, and we will celebrate with all the other saints in a celebration like no one has ever seen before. Happy All Saints Day! We win!
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Summer: starting Memorial Day Weekend
9:00 am Worship Service KMSD Broadcast
10:00 am Coffee and Fellowship
WOW (Worship on Wednesday) 6:30 pm
Winter: starting after Labor Day
8:30 am Worship Service KMSD Broadcast
9:35 am Educational Hour
9:35 am Coffee and Fellowship
10:45 am Worship Service
WOW (Worship on Wednesday) 6:30 pm |
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401 South Flynn Drive
Milbank SD 57252
605.432.5566 |
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