Hello,
Today, I have decided to do two dangerous things as I write this Bungee Cord. First, I am going to write about something that happened decades ago. Second, I am going to write about something involving sports. So, if you weren’t around in the 80’s, and if you could care less about baseball…..well, I hope you hang in there with me.
Bill Buckner died today. Bill Buckner played baseball for the Cubs when I was younger. I remember him well. His thick moustache, his wobbly ankles that could barely carry him to first base, and his amazing ability to hit a baseball. For us Cub fans, Bill Buckner was a ray of sunshine in a century of cloudy to partly cloudy skies.
Thing is, though, that most people do not remember Bill Buckner for these things. He is most remembered (I am remember it, too, because I watched it happen) for a ground ball that went through his legs during a World Series game played in the 80’s, a game that Boston wound up losing….and eventually losing the World Series. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was a soft ground ball that a fledgling Little Leaguer could have fielded with ease, and just as all the Boston fans who were watching breathed a sigh of relief for the impending out, a gasp went through the stadium and every living room as the ball trickled through Bill Buckner’s legs. And that error that happened several decades ago is the thing that Bill Buckner seems to be remembered for by most people. I was listening to a sports radio station on the way to my weekly Pastor’s Bible study, and the announcer made note of this when he said that in every Obituary that he read, the second sentence was “former Boston Red Sox player who made a critical error in a 80’s World Series game.
The announcer said that it was a shame that Bill Buckner’s remembrance was spotlighted on this one error, but, he said, that is the way Sports is. Despite the courage, grit, and talent that Bill Buckner evidenced for all of his years of baseball, when his name is brought up, the first thing that people tend to say, “Oh, yeah. I remember the ball going through his legs.” But, agreeing with the announcer, that is the way Sports is.
But I don’t think that Sports is the only thing to work this way, I think that life works this way, too. Life has a way of putting a spotlight on our errors….our blunders….our failures, and it keeps the spotlight on those things through our whole life, and even when the life is gone. The good, the grit, the courage, the talent is often recalled, but the errors and blunders are always remembered. That is the way it is with life.
Thank God, though, that that is not the way it is with God. The Bible tells us that God, when God thinks of us, does not focus on what we have done, instead God focuses on what God has done. As far as the east is from the west, so are our sins in God’s eyes. God remembers them no more, says the Bible. Likewise the good and great things that we might want recalled at our funerals, the Apostle Paul says they are really to be considered refuse (that is a polite translation of the Greek word). When God thinks of us, God thinks of what God has done. God sent his Son to die for each one. Each day of our lives, be it a good day or a terrible one, God looks upon each of us and says, “My Son, Jesus, died for that one.” And on the day of each of our deaths, God will say, “My Son, Jesus, died for this one so that not even death can take this one from me.”
Thankful that God looks upon me this way, I pray that God would give me eyes to look upon others in the same way. The world has a way of constantly reminding me of what people have done as I look upon them. Thank God, that God is constantly reminding me of what God has done as I look upon others…..even Bill Buckner.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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