Politely put, it was pretty much a beat-down.
As most expected, my beloved Billikens had their way on Friday night against the Mastadons of Purdue-Fort Wayne. Final score: 91-60. And some might say it wasn’t even that close. In the waning moments of the game, SLU’s least-talented players were on the court – offering a gesture of mercy to the visiting squad.
Yes, all that happened on Friday night. And I suspect most of the Basketball World yawned with indifference. The Billikens are good, even pretty exciting at times. But no one really thinks they’ll rank among the sport’s elite this season. The Mastadons, for their part, would likely be thrilled to finish the year with a winning record.
All that is true. And as I watched the events unfold, I kept thinking about the effort that had gone into making it happen. Even an overmatched squad like P-FW has more than a few talented players, after all. Division 1 players: fast, well-conditioned, capable shooters. Each of them had poured many thousands of hours into practice through the years, just to earn the right to take the court for Friday night’s beat-down.
That sort of effort is surely worth my admiration. Which is big part of why I love the sport, I suppose: these athletes – even the worst of them – do things I could only imagine doing myself. In my dreams, as it were.
My dreams, but still something of a nightmare for the P-FW players. All their years of effort, all their sweat, all their energy wound up producing little more than a whimper on Friday night. And that’s an outcome worth noting, it seems to me.
We are, all of us, overmatched in some sense, are we not?
Whether we are talented or not, powerful or not, connected or not, beautiful or not, witty or not, sturdy or not, cheerful or not, compassionate or not, generous or not … in the end, it matters not. In the end, it all goes away – it all goes, you might say, the way of the Mastadon.
This is a sobering perspective, surely.
And yet it is reason for celebration, for those who are “in Christ.” We ponder this very truth as we mark the feast of Christ the King. Saint Paul reminds us that, in Christ, we have been made “fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in light. [God] delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption…
In Christ the King, “all things hold together.” And this is good news, indeed – particularly on those inevitable occasions when we find ourselves overmatched.
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 