Hello,
Signs of autumn: monochromatic green hillsides become patchwork quilts of brilliant color; warm short-sleeved evenings on the deck require a sweatshirt to stay warm; the morning alarm that had gone off with the brightness of the sun now rings in the pitch black of night…….and, Friday night high school football.
The church where I am the pastor pulls in people from about 5 or 6 school districts most of whom are having struggling seasons. This morning I was talking to one of the high school students who is a cheerleader at one such floundering football school. “How’d the game go Friday night?”, I asked her as she was leaving worship.
“We got crushed!”, she said, and her mother joined in the conversation adding that they hadn’t yet won a game, and it the next several gives did not look very promising.
“Well, then,” I said, “sounds like they need you to cheer even louder for them to keep their spirits up!” She smiled.
When it comes to football teams….and life in general….its no fun to be a cellar dweller. (I should know…I root for the University of Illinois!) Stumble once or twice and people will hang around you, but fall flat on your face over and over again…well, people have a way of giving up on you, avoiding you, and naming you “Loser”. And pretty soon, it is easy to start believing what they say. And when that happens, the losing isn’t the worst of it, the sting of being a failure burns far more severe. Losing football players lose the desire to play and wonder why they are suiting up for another game – after all they are losers. Recipients of report cards loaded with “F’s” can become so disheartened that they wonder why they even go to class at all – after all they are losers. People whose relationships fall apart begin to believe that they are unlovable – after all they are losers. The mantra of “Loser” is an everplaying scratched record, and it is played at a mind numbing decibel.
Fact of the matter is, that football teams that are winning don’t really need cheer leaders….the crowd has a way of cheering un-led. Likewise, people that are “winners” don’t really need cheerleaders to get people to cheer them on, they, too seem to be spontaneously acclaimed. The ones who really need the cheerleaders are the ones who keep on losing. They need to hear voices of encouragement that eat away at the humiliation they feel. They need to hear the voices of hope that make their way through the darkness of their despair and fear. They need to hear the voices of forgiveness and mercy that blanket them from the chilling winds of guilt. It might be fun to be a cheerleader when your team is winning, but it is far more important to be a cheerleader when you or your team is not.
I am a cheerleader. Sunday after Sunday I, as a pastor, lead cheers: “A mighty fortress is our God”, “This is the feast of victory for our God”, “Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness”, “Chief of sinners though I be, Jesus shed his blood for me”, “Love divine all loves excelling”, “Jesus Christ is risen today! Alleluia!” It is fun to lead these cheers when things are going well and there is much to celebrate….actually, I don’t feel like I need to lead at all, the cheering of joy and thanks seems to spontaneously erupt from the crowd.
But when times are tough…when the voices outside are deafening with their pronouncement of loser…when grief is suffocating….when fear is debilitating…when shame is crushing…that is when, although it may be hard, I am there to lead the cheer, the cheer that blasted from the cross and the grave with victorious power. I lead that cheer because that cheer is the very thing that Jesus died and rose for. That cross-born cheer pulses with divine strength that crushes darkness and ignites light, that silences doom and magnifies hope, and disintegrates death and explodes with life.
So, if you find yourself on the winning side of things on any given Sunday morning, come to church where your cheers will find their power in thankfulness to God. And if you find yourself on the losing side of things on any given Sunday morning, come to church where God himself will cheer you on, and so will I….and of this I am certain, when you leave church you will be empowered to once again step onto the field with new courage and new hope!
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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