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HE WORE OUR JERSEY
In every sport, victory is the final point of years of discipline, hard work, skill and concentration. You will never find a person pick up a tennis racket at the age of twenty, and one week or a few months later win Wimbledon or even qualify to compete there.
Every sport has its own rules. Any goal or point scored must result from playing according to those rules.
Victory, or the final point of disciplined exertion, is represented in some form or another.
In basketball the ball has to go through the hoop. In volleyball the ball fails to be returned to the opposite team.
In soccer, the player has to kick the ball with his foot past the goal keeper inside the goal posts. The player can be anywhere in the field.
In rugby, the player has to be there on the final line. The player cannot kick the ball as in soccer. He has to be there and he has to apply downward pressure on the ball, on or past the final line.
In order to do this the Rugby player has to stoop down and touch the ground with the ball. Many times in the face of much opposition, in order to do that, he will dive face down on the ground stretching his hand or both hands, past the final line, with the ball touching the ground. Stooping or diving face down is hardly an action that represents triumph. But this is the rule. Unlike soccer, where the player can kick the ball from any distance, in Rugby the player has to be there and his hand, with the ball in it, has to be past the final line, pressed by his hands to the ground.
Scoring a goal in soccer is shrouded in glory. You kick the ball with your “feet”, while you are “upright” (most of the time). Usually a goal that has been scored from a longer range is more spectacular than a goal that has been scored near the goal posts.
Having come from the Middle East the only game I played was Soccer. Upon watching some games of Rugby on TV, I thought the method of scoring a try was stupid and foolish.
I thought to myself: “Why not just kick the ball like they do in soccer?” I thought like a soccer player and judged the Rugby game as a soccer player.
When we see Jesus, the Lord from heaven, crucified on the cross, weak and bloodied, it is hardly a scene fitting for any lord, and far from representing a victory. But it is a victory. On the cross, he put sin and death past the final line. He put sin and death out of existence. When he laid down his life for the world, he scored the “try” of the ages.
It had to be Him and it had to be the cross. There was no other way. This is why He is the only way.
You see, the rule was this: Obedience to the finishing line. And He obeyed because He loved His Father.
For His “try” to be legitimate He had to wear our jersey. He, the only begotten Son of God, had to wear our jersey. (John 1) He did not wear our jersey to be one of the boys. He wore our jersey to be truly man. And His jersey was the most bloodied, most mangled and tattered because He bore the brunt of all the tackles. Isaiah, 600 years before his coming wrote: “His appearance was so disfigured that He did not look like a man, and His form did not resemble a human being” (See also Isaiah 53)
He wore our jersey, not that of the angels. He is our captain. He is on our side. He is our brother. (Hebrews 2:14-18)
He is still wearing our jersey and He is wearing it forever for us. What an honour! What He sacrificed in full we gain in full and what the Father gave in full we receive in full. (Eph 3:19) The mind boggles!!
The fig Farmer
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