A Day For
Cheering!
Bob Wallace
February 5, 2006
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c
Scantily clad cheerleaders will be out in
full force today in Ford Stadium to rouse 90 thousand warmly dressed
cheering fans of the Seahawks and the Steelers. After all, today is super
bowl Sunday --the biggest day in the year in sports. The advance
fever-pitched hype insures that fans will converge on Detroit today like
pilgrims to Mecca. Estimates are that 140 millions will worship at the
hundred yard altar today--either at the game or on TV. It like Christmas
for electronics dealers who will have sold an estimated 100,000 new TV
sets (most of them big) for this game. Lots of folk will congregate and
enjoy food and drink in one of the biggest sports communions of the year.
Pizza companies will sell some 400,000 pizzas this evening! Family rooms
and sports bars across the nation will be noisy with cheers when their
team scores or makes a good play. Advertisers will pay millions for 15-30
second ads. The stakes are high! The winners take away bragging rights,
rings, dollars, prestige, a hometown parade, claim to fame--and a place in
sports history. It's a day for cheering!
In our culture, sports competitions decide who the champions are -- the
best, strongest, most enduring, quickest, smartest, etc. We love the
adrenaline rush that causes winners to dance, punch the air with their
forefinger claiming #1 status, and then brag breathlessly as microphones
are stuck in their faces. Already prepared Tee shirts and caps, are
quickly put on for more prancing and celebrating. The pre-game hype lasts
right up to kickoff, and as soon as the clock runs down and the final
whistle blows, the show shifts to post-game replays and analyses by
talking heads who will tell us with an authoritative demeanor why one team
won and the other team lost.
Losers will dejectedly move quietly to the locker room to bind up their
wounds and bruised egos, board the bus, and go home to contemplate what
might have been.
This predictable ritual, in its 40th year, is repeated annually with
little change except the names of the teams and the musicians engaged to
do the half-time show.
In preparation for preaching today, I searched the texts for a connection
to the activities and hype of this day from which to draw analogies.
Usually we preachers can "stretch" a text to fit most anything we want to
say, but today's gospel and epistle lessons resisted even an experienced
stretcher. So I reverted to the Psalms and the Old Testament.
Surprisingly, I did find a connection; the Psalmist is actually leading
cheers. The last five Psalms of the 150 all begin and end with the phrase:
"PRAISE THE LORD" The very last verse exhorts us even more: "Let
everything that breathes praise the LORD! Praise the LORD." That theme is
so redundant in these closing Psalms that it is like a cheer: Instead of
"Go Team Go!" It is "Praise the Lord".
The Psalmist reminds us why we're here today. This is the day for
cheering; of course, every Sunday is.
In the larger scheme of things, it is neither the Seahawks nor the
Steelers who are the real champions in life deserving of our cheers of
praise. It is the God of creation,
compassion, and healing (who we know most fully in the life, death, and
resurrection of Christ). Mark gospel text for
today tells us about Jesus going throughout
Galilee proclaiming and healing with crowds following him.
Isaiah, the other Old Testament writer, "kicks" in [no pun intended] with
his analysis and which adds a note about what happens to those who do the
cheering. Who praise God.
"Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting
God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He
does not faint or grow weary,... He gives power to the faint and
strengthens the powerless....those who wait for the Lord shall renew their
strength, they shall mount up like eagles, they shall run and not be
weary, they shall walk and not faint..."Isaiah 40:28-31
This cheering business has two purposes: 1) praising
God, and 2) bringing strength to those do the praising. This
strength is not the quickly dissipating adrenaline rush of high fives and
chest-bumping of those who will beat down their opponents today in Ford
stadium. This is a lasting strength and power for life.
Several years ago, when Chris and I were traveling through Georgia, we
tuned in to a local church service on the radio. We don't usually listen
to church services, but we were so intrigued by the simplicity and
sincerity with which the woman minister led the people to praise
God that we left it on for a few minutes.
After she had recounted the many blessings that God
had bestowed upon them and "named them one by one", she led the
congregation in a big cheer: "Now, let's give God
a big hand." The congregation erupted into a clapping, whooping and
hollering, cheering crowd that reminded us the sound from Cameron or the
Dean Dome. Their clapping was punctuated with shouts of "Amen" and "Praise
the Lord". I have no doubt that those worshipers left that service ready
to face a new week with confidence and faith. They had been strengthened
by their praise of God.
That's what this Sunday and all Sundays are all about--giving
God a big hand and thanking him for all our
blessings. The effect is that Praise helps connect us with the real source
of power which sustains us in life. "He gives power to the faint and
strengthens the powerless....those who wait for the Lord shall renew their
strength, they shall mount up like eagles, they shall run and not be
weary, they shall walk and not faint..."Isaiah 40:28-31
A weekly diet of Praise is good for the soul. Being here and Praising
God will do you more good than watching the
super bowl today.
This is a day for cheering!
