I was listening to local sports talk radio the other day as I was driving home after a long day of meetings. The discussion centered around the impending NFL lockout. In case you haven’t heard the millionare players and the billionare owners are not exactly on the same page on what to do with the over $70 Billion of annual revenue that the league generates (yes, you read that number right).
Players and owners are not the only ones gripping. The fans are not happy.
The theme of this particular show was how the lockout would impact you. The hosts and callers were pretty transparent. There were guys agonizing about losing the time with the other fellas, the brew and the food. There was some unrest as to how to deal with the gambling vacuum. There were also those old-school fans who are sentimentally attached to their teams.
You may be surprised however, to learn of what the biggest beef fans had with the lockout…Fantasy Football. In case you are not aware of what this is, it is basically a pseudo-league where the fans get to act like general managers. The ‘real’ games on the field become the statistical fodder for the fake..err..fantasy games. Some guys are in as many as 5-7 different leagues. And suffice it to say, they are not happy about what this real lockout could mean for their fantasy leagues.
Full disclosure: I have never played (is that the right word?) a down of Fantasy Football. I get why some guys are down with it, but it’s not for me. So, I’m not hating here. I am just intrigued.
In fact, as a Christian I am always trying to think through how the gospel intrudes into the narratives of people’s lives. I want to try to help make that connection myself for them. I want to show how the gospel answers the pain, suffering, emptiness, hunger, etc of whatever idol is disappointing them.
In this case I was amazed. Caller after caller talked about how they did not know what they would do with their lives if they could not compete in their fantasy league. One guy in particular said (I am quoting roughly, but accurately): “I don’t want them to lockout because I don’t want to have to face the reality of how worthless my life really is. I don’t want to think that I have wasted my life with a fantasy league.”
The guy was trying to make the hosts and audience laugh. But I suspect that there was some truth woven into his remarks. No doubt he was thinking about what life would be like without Fantasy Football and he decided it would be meaningless. Fantasy Football had become his god. It is his life, his meaning. It’s what he clings to, it’s what comforts him.
I have heard Tim Keller say something like this, “If I don’t have ‘X’ my life will be meaningless. If ‘X’ is not Christ then ‘X’ is an idol.”
This is exactly what is happening here for the Fantasy guys. Listen, people come from all types of backgrounds and are bound up in all types of stuff. But this much is true for everyone outside of Christ: they are hungry and they are hurting.
They are hungry because whatever the idol is it cannot satisfy. It just keeps making you more hungry. Idol’s cannot satisfy you, they just make you more hungry.
Furthermore, they are hurting. Why? Because they know the reality of unmet worship expectations. There conscience accuses them of their idolatry. Their cravings cannot be met and their consciences cannot be asuaged. Under all of this is the haunting reality that we are wasting our lives.
This is where the beauty of Christ comes to bear. This is where Jesus enters into the narrative and satisfies and heals. He calls out to the hungry, hurting, unsatisfied souls to come to him for rest and the removal of guilt:
(Mat 11.28-30
) Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
He comes to satisfy hungry people. He comes to make guilty people feel no shame. This he does by taking our guilt and filling our souls.
It is only Christ whom the hungry eyes of men may focus upon to find rest from the weary hike through this world. It is only Jesus who did not waste his life and who can satisfy souls. And it is only Jesus who welcomes hungry, hurting people to himself to be healed and satisfied. We need to remember that as Spurgeon said, he is indeed a better Savior then I think him to be. It’s my hungry heart that reminds me of how I forget this.