Yup, we lost. The last time I can recall being emotionally affected by a professional sports team was the last game the Patriot defense gave up a long bomb from Eli Manning to a miracle no-name Giants wide receiver and the Patriots' consequent loss of the Superbowl. Nice.
One thing I am trying to train myself to do is when I feel any emotion of intensity is to ask myself what is underneath the surface causing said emotion. I want to quit dancing around on the top of this pie crust and dive deep into the middle- the place where all thickness of meaning is... (I do love pie; and don't get me wrong, I loooooovvveeee pie crust, but come on now. You can't only eat pie crust the WHOLE time, you've gotta get to the substance of the thing!)... But anyways, I don't want to merely turn to a Bible verse that says "Don't be angry" and then tell myself to stop being angry- that doesn't fix the fact that my emotions are responding to a desperately wicked heart-sickness, and rote obedience can never solve that problem.
I had a conversation with a mentor of mine on Superbowl Sunday Morning and I told him how I was expecting to be affected by the outcome of this game. He responded to my statement by telling me that I could only be affected by the outcome of the game if I were idolizing one team or another. I believe he's on to something. The fact that I would knowingly be either favorably or adversely affected by the loss of the Patriots (as I have been) very well may show that I am hoping in something other than the cross of Christ for my satisfaction and joy. Initially, I bristled under his assessment, but as I went through the day thinking about what he said, I can see that taking sports (or any kind of competition) too seriously leads to an identity association (I am a "team x" fan) and the inevitable emotional roller-coaster with "team x" that is separated from the cross and the freedom to be emotionally stable because we are positionally secure.
If you identify yourself as a "Patriots fan" or a "Celtics fan" and exhibit patterns of sourness in losing and excessive elation in winning, you genuinely might put too much hope in your team, expecting something that you neither can nor will never get from them.
Now, I know that it's not wrong to be a sports fan. I actually believe that there is a feeling in sports that is an actual taste of heaven: when there are four seconds left and there is time for one play and the team is down by four points and the quarterback throws a hail mary pass and the receiver catches it in triple coverage and you go ecstatic, you have experienced a very other-than-you experience. This is the same other-than-you experience that is akin to standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon and the word "wow" isn't good enough. It's like going to the aquarium and seeing a shark, kingly in majesty, swim literally inches away from your face and again, "wow" is not good enough. A walkoff home run; a buzzer-beating 3 pointer; a 55-yard field goal with 0:00 left on the clock; they all elicit a response that is what I believe is a taste of heaven. Just like there is nothing that has to do with me when I see those kinds of jaw-dropping plays like the ones I have described, worshipping God with all of creation at the end of time will similarly have nothing to do with any kind of self-reflection but our elation will be completely focused on the object of adoration.
All I want you to do is to really honestly consider your motives for why you love your team and the big game so much. "Why" is a wonderful question! The fact that I expected to be depressed after a Patriots loss and jovial after a win does not prove that I prepared my heart for sin, but it gives me quite legitimate grounds to consider the state of my spirit; and such an expectation provides yet another opportunity to turn my affections back to the cross and ask the Lord to make me understand what is going on inside and convict me of the sin that I know is always there.
We should thank God for yet another opportunity for a heart-check; in light of this discussion, the verses of Psalm 139:23-24 are a couple great things upon which we should meditate.
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
(Psalm 139:23-24 ESV)
God is our hope.
.DSN.
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