Now All We Need Is A Marching Band

I was watching the Badger game on Saturday (before running off to Church for a wedding) and I found myself fascinated (again) with the sheer energy of the game and it had nothing to do with what was happening on the field.

There were thousands of people (a sea of Badger red) jumping and screaming and cheering on the team and I know that this scene (except for the Badger red) was being replayed all over the country and I began wondering (not for the first time) what it was, about this game or this setting, that generated this kind of excitement.

My first thought, and the easy answer, was “beer.” Why else would people pay anywhere from $50 to $300 a ticket to spend three hours outdoors on metal bench seats in the cold and the rain and be glad for the opportunity? Intoxication would explain a lot of that behavior but the problem with my “beer theory” is that I personally know people who are practical “teetotalers” and are just as fanatical as anyone else.

The real question I want answered (a question you hear preachers use from time to time) is why are we so willing to act like fools for a game but never express that same kind of passion for Jesus?

I’m guessing here, but I suspect that the difference between the game and Jesus is that we know that the game doesn’t really matter and contrariwise we intuitively know that Jesus is important (or at the very least could be important) and we don’t want to mess this up.

What we have with the game is confidence. What we don’t have with Jesus is confidence. What Jesus came to provide for us is confidence in Him.

Jesus said to the paralytic, “…that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." Luke 5:24

Jesus said to the Pharisees, “…believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” John 10:38

The Apostle Paul said, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints…” Ephesians 1:18

When we KNOW Jesus forgiveness in our lives, when we KNOW He is able to change things, when we really KNOW “the hope to which he has called” us then we can begin to dance and shout and sing in a whole new way and we might even begin to think of ourselves as Jesus’ FANS. We are supposed to KNOW. Now all we need is a marching band.