The Super Bowl is Sunday. Many of you don't care. A few of you pretend to care. Still others of you actually do care but not because you like either the Steelers or the Cardinals, but simply because it's the Super Bowl. This is the category I fall in. I love football. The strategy, the nuances. Really, I consider a football game to be a Soap Opera for men. It has deceit, and drama, and sometimes violence. Just no dialogue which makes it perfect for men. But I digress. The last category of people are the ones who care about the Super Bowl because they are fans of one of the two teams. As a Dolphin fan, this is not a category I have fit into since the early 80's.
These fans generally suffer from a temporary case of insanity who's symptoms include, (but are not limited to):
- Inexplicable increase in voice volume at random times.
- Desire to "high-five" total strangers.
- Celebrating someone else's accomplishments as if they were their own.
- Excessive shouts of "wooo hooo!" and/or "In Your Face!"
- Yelling at the television in the hopes that a coach or referee will hear them in their headphones.
- Excessive self decoration in only two or three colors; sometimes as severe as altering the color on ones skin.
- Denial of reality despite the use of video documentation, AKA: instant replay. (This particular symptom is known as "Raiderous Delirium" because it commonly occurs to fans of the Oakland Raiders throughout the NFL season.)
If you or someone you love shows sign of these symptoms this Sunday, I'm sorry to tell you that there is no known treatment at this time. The good news is that their return to reality is fairly likely. More so if the team they are cheering for loses. If their team wins, they are likely to display some of these symptoms for up to 7 days. Sometimes people are just too obsessive.
I once heard a Christian speaker suggest that as Christians, we should be able to get just as excited about Jesus as some people do about their favorite sports team. Our zeal and boisterousness should be equal or greater to that of the thousands of fans that fill entire stadiums to see their favorite teams play. Quite frankly, I don't know if that is such a good idea.
I don't think face painting, chest bumping and random, incoherent shouting is quite was Jesus had in mind. Besides, it would be difficult to eat ice-cream out of a miniature crown of thorns. But what scares me the most is how close we really are to being belligerently fanatical about Christianity. Think about it; we have our own bumper-stickers, T-Shirts, coffee cups, magazines, anthems, web-sites, jewelry, and even our own MINTS. In a sense, Christians have out marketed major sporting franchises. Christians can also be way too "In your face" about Christianity that ultimately makes people look at us like we're as psychotic as the scary raider fans who dress up like Gwar every week during football season. (If you don't know who Gwar is, just do a google image search and you'll see what I mean,) I don't think that's what Jesus died for.
Don't get me wrong, I believe wholeheartedly that we should be excited about the truth that has been revealed to us and I have nothing against "Christian" products like t-shirts and magazines. In a manner of speaking, this blog itself is part of the "Christian machine." I think our zeal and excitement about Jesus should manifest itself in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. (These attributes are described by Paul as "the fruits of the Spirit") Look at that list of qualities again. Now compare that to a fanatical admirer of a sports team. Does the fan display any of those qualities? I think Jesus had something much larger and more revolutionary in mind than a bunch of screaming "fans" to fill his divine stadium. I think Jesus wants us to be ON His team, not just fans of it.
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