I believe one of the greatest compliments an athlete can be given is to be called a “competitor”. The question I am continually asking my players is “did you compete today?” There are of a lot athletic individuals, but not every athlete truly competes. Great competitors play with “heart”; they don’t give up when things aren’t going their way and they don’t give in when they are losing. They fight you until the last second of the final round and they are still throwing punches as the bell rings. When I think of great competitors names like Arnold Palmer, Steve Prefontaine, Babe Zaharais, Pete Rose, Martina Navratilova, Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods comes to mind. I’m sure you have your own list as well. Would you ever think to put God on that list?
God is a competitor! He competed for us and won. The former MLB great closer Billy Wagner admitted that there was a time that he really struggled with how felt when he was competing because he thought it was at odds with how believed a Christian should feel and act. Billy was a fiercest competitor; he was 5’9” and threw 100 plus. He said “I hated losing more than I loved winning, and that drove me”. He stated further, “I never wished any ill-will toward my opponent, but it was either him or me. It was my job to get him out and sometimes that required me buzzing his chin with 98 mph fastball.” Billy said it wasn’t until much later in his career that he found some peace with his competitive nature and that was when certain clubhouse chaplain helped him understand that God is also competitive.
Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God (Ex. 34:14). Throughout Old Testament, God is called “Jealous”. Yahweh was desirous of Israel’s worship – their love and devotion. God loved them and was what was best for them, so He struggled – competed – to win their hearts. So much so, that he “sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him”(1 John 4:9). The competitive nature of God hit close to home with Billy especially when he reflected on the scene in the temple courtyard where Jesus overturned the tables of the money changes. By no means is this a license to be abusive toward others or destructive of their things, but it is license to be passionately expressive and competitive toward the things that are dear to our hearts. For Jesus, it was love for his Father’s house – true and proper worship. For Billy Wagner, it was getting on that mound and competing against himself and for his teammates by competing against the given opponent of the day.
God not only competed for our love and affection by sending his only Son into world (John 3:16), but also competed against the powers that held humanity captive. The earliest proclamations were “Jesus is Lord” triumphantly declaring that Christ’s Kingdom had come. David Bentley Hart notes, “For the early Church, Easter was an event of total divine victory in every sphere of reality.”[i] The earliest Christians taught that the original sin of Adam and Eve placed all of humanity under subjugation to sin, death and Devil. Christ’s crucifixion, death and resurrection is God’s victory over these three. God conquers death by fully entering into and overcoming it – “by trampling down death by death”. For 2nd century church father, Irenaeus, Christ is the one who “has made captivity captive” (Eph 4:8). Later this model of atonement became referred to as “Christus Victor”. God conquers Satan through crucifixion; ironically, with the very means intended by the Evil One to do away with Jesus. Christ entered fully into the bondage of death and sin, shattering everything that separated us from God, making it a moment of victory, and thereby liberating us to live lives of love without the fear of death. In other words, God competed for us and won.
[i] Hart, David Bentley, The Story of Christianity, p23.