As I write this column it occurs to me that, a week from today, my son Chris will play his last basketball game of the year. It also occurs to me that he will have to make a decision as to whether or not he’ll be present to play that game, because a week from today will also be Ash Wednesday, and we will have church that night in our congregation.
By the time you read this, that day will be past (three days past), but as of today I find myself distressed that we face such a dilemma this year. Such dilemmas are becoming more common — no day is so sacred it can’t be violated.
I even remember an Easter weekend from a few years back when my wife found herself in a gym in Akron, Ohio, watching our eldest son, Will, play basketball in the Lebron James Classic. Though they had journeyed to Akron for the weekend, my son did not play in the game on Sunday, for again it was Easter Sunday(!), and Christians go to church on Easter.
But that game, and many others, went on without him, leading us to question: Why do Christians give in so easily to the world?
You see, if all the people at that tournament who claimed to be Christians had acted like it and gone to church, there wouldn’t have been enough kids present to play basketball that day. But with very few exceptions, the overwhelming majority decided it was more important to play basketball than celebrate the most pivotal event in the history of the world: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The games went on for them that day, instead of Easter.
That’s sad, for a couple of reasons. The first is that Jesus has a warning for those who deny Him:
“Everyone who acknowledges Me before men, I will also acknowledge before My Father in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny before My Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33).
The second is this: We Christians in America don’t have to deny Jesus, for we have such a thing as the First Amendment that guarantees us the right to acknowledge Him whenever we want.
That’s not the case everywhere. There are people in some parts of the world who risk paying the ultimate price to confess faith in Jesus Christ. And yet here in America, we can’t even miss a sporting event on Sunday morning? Easter Sunday, no less!
That is sad, very sad indeed. We Christians are supposed to convert the world, not the other way around.
It doesn’t have to be that way. We Christians can reprioritize our lives to acknowledge Jesus with the way we live. And that starts with where we spend days set aside for worship.
If we’re going to be the people of God and bear witness to the Name of Christ, we need to act like it. After all, God promises to use our witness to bring others to be His people too.
The Rev. Dan O’Connor is pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Greenfield. This weekly column is written by local clergy members.
