The Madness of March and the Foolishness of the Cross

People who know me know I love basketball.  So naturally this is an exciting time of year for me.  I can’t say it’s exciting every year, because, being a fan of particular teams, my excitement usually depends on how well my teams are doing.  My teams are generally pretty competitive so I’m always at least a little interested.  This year things look good.

On the NBA side, my Pacers are currently seeded #3 in the East.  To be clear, they traded their star player (Paul George) away last off-season because he said he’d leave when his contract was up (this off-season).  Everyone – following conventional wisdom – said the Pacers would barely win 30 games (of an 82 game season) and would miss the playoffs.  But the opposite has occurred.  Young talent (Myles Turner) has continued to develop, and the players for whom George was traded have paid enormous dividends (Victor Oladipo was an all-star and will no doubt win Most Improved Player, becoming the fifth Pacer to do so since 2000).  Now the Pacers are 40-28, nine games ahead of their projected 31 wins with 14 games left in the season.  No one knows the future.  I’m excited. (For the record, I was one of the few who liked the Oladipo trade when it first happened).

On the NCAA side, my Purdue Boilermakers were ranked #3 in the country for several weeks in a row mid-season, having won 19 in a row, only to lose three in a row and sputter to a 2 seed in the Big Dance starting today.  Everyone is talking about Arizona, Michigan State, Duke, Xavier, and Villanova, and rightly so.  But Joe Lunardi has said not to sleep on theBoilermakers, because they are built for tournament success.  Though they lost some games mid-season, every team lost games mid-season. 
The reason I bring them up is that I thought they were in for a rebuild after losing Caleb Swanigan to the NBA last year. And this is the third season in a row where I predicted a rebuild, only for the team to actually be better than the year before.  Again, conventional wisdom said one thing, but the results said another.

It reminds me of the storyline of the Bible.  The goal of Biblical history is to show how God reveals Himself through redemptive activity which he initiates and sees through.  But how he does it is not according to conventional wisdom.  Conventional wisdom says to bring about salvation through strength.  But God, while showing himself through mighty acts, does it first through weakness.  Thus when Satan brings about “the Fall” of man through tempting the first people, God tells him a child will come to the people one day who will defeat him.  When those first people have two sons, one son murders another one in a show of strength, thus making the Genesis reader think the serpent’s seed will win.  So God gives the people another son so that his promise of salvation through a son one day will be kept intact.  (Genesis 3-4)

The line is intact through a crazy man Noah spending 100 years building an ark for a flood that he had been told was coming, though when he told everyone else about it, they didn’t repent, probably thinking he was insane.  But it came, and his family alone survived. (Genesis 6-7)

When Egypt’s Pharaoh tried to kill all the firstborn sons of Israel, one son’s mom acted swiftly to keep him safe.  And he was the one who eventually grew up to lead Israel out of Egyptian slavery. (Exodus 2, and so on)

When Israel cowered away from entering the promised land because of the “giants” who lived there and would surely fight and defeat them, there were two courageous young men who said, “Wait a minute; GOD is on our side.  Why are we afraid?”  They were the only ones who survived from that generation; and they led Israel into the land years later. (Numbers 13-14)

When giant Goliath made Israel shake in their sandals with his threats, a little shepherd boy said he’d take care of this man who blasphemes God.  And so he took a rock and crushed the head of the giant, proving in a lesser way that, as God had said, one would one day come and “crush the head of the serpent.” (1 Samuel 17)

Then Jesus came into the world in the redneck side of the country, to parents who had to escape another plot by the powers that be to kill the firstborn sons of Israel (Jesus included).  He grew up and eventually worked as a homeless itinerant preacher, with basically nothing to his name (Luke 9:58).  Yet his name healed every sick person who touched him and rose up the dead whom He chose to raise.  And though he was murdered, it was by his own plan (John 10:18) so that through the weakness of the cross, the wisdom of the world – conventional wisdom – would be shown a sham, and God would get glory for saving as only He could.

This is why Paul the Apostle said that the word of the cross is “foolishness” (Greek moronic) to the world.  It is not conventional wisdom.  But to those who are called, it is indeed the power and wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:18-24).

On the whole, the great sports teams end up rising to the top at the end of the season.  The blue bloods of college basketball will probably outlast the Purdues of the field.  And there are only so many Cinderella stories like VCU in 2011 or George Mason in 2006.  Those are rare.  And it’s no secret that either Golden State or Houston (probably Golden State) will win the NBA championship, leaving Pacers fans like me to try to be content with 4^th or 5^th place.

But as I reflect on the reality that the status quo on the whole stays unchanged and likely will this year (though there have been some surprises particularly by my teams), I’m reminded that there is one narrative in which conventional wisdom doesn’t stand a chance: how one finds reality with God and stays there for eternity.  It’s either the foolishness of the cross and the discomfort of repentance, or it’s nothing.  And instead of it being a proof against God (ie, that Christianity is for suckers who believe anything), it is a proof for God, because He attaches himself to those who are too broken and poor in spirit to go anywhere else but to Him.  The good news is that the cross wasn’t the end of the story, but the resurrection was.  And that truth, while being unconventional, will be all the reality left to celebrate in the end.