Last week something strange happened. I drove into our parking lot, watching a buzzard circling a small corner of the lot. He was only about 30 feet in the air. I got out of my car and assumed he would fly away. However, he began to circle me at about 25 feet. I must confess having a buzzard circle you is not a comforting experience. I picked up my pace a little bit, figuring if this was going to be “my time to go” then I wanted to be inside.
This year losing is becoming regular instead of rare. I am forced to accept losing as someone spoiled by undefeated seasons, BCS National Championship games, and Big 12 championships. Yes, I am an Oklahoma Sooner fan and have been throughout my life. The good years have been very good and the bad years, not too bad. But this year the football team has dipping at or below .500 all season. In fact, the Sooners have not won two games in a row. They have lost three games, which is more than they lost in the previous too years. I am dealing with losing.
From a spiritual standpoint, losing is really not entirely bad. Our American culture despises losing, fires losers, blames others and pursues trophies at all human cost. We are in denial about losing. It happens. Losing is going to happen. There are times when it feels like buzzards are circling over our heads or that horn frogs are sitting on our desk.
How one responds in the spiritually darker times when all seems lost is what can deepen our faith. There is an amazing story about God not being afraid of the darkness of this world. Rather than stay perched in the safety of invincibility, unquestioned status, immeasurable power, God descended into the darkness of earth. God became a man. At the same moment Jesus was divine being and human being.
This decent took God to the bottom. This divine-human being, Jesus, was executed. His execution exposed the darkness of the sin in this world. At the exact same time, Jesus' execution brilliantly showed the eternal and inescapable love of God. God would not be denied.
Buzzards circled a dead God, killed by his creation, who had seemed to lose all self-respect. How would God react to the very world he spoke life into that now sucked all life out of his son?
God turned losing into victory. God again made life out of death. He raised Jesus back to life and in essence told humanity, “There is no escaping my saving love. You cannot beat me at the game of life.”
Losing is bad, but there is no better story than the God who pulled the light of life from the darkness of death. "Shew, buzzards!"
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