A tale of Hoops and Hope

One of the things I really enjoy during the winter season is attending local high school and college basketball games. And I have plenty of options this season. My son Alex, who is in his second year attending Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet, is also coaching the Denfeld ninth-grade basketball team. My niece, Michala, is a senior at St. Scholastica and plays basketball for the Saints. And there are usually a few high school church members who play on the Esko basketball team. Also, I try to catch a few of my eighth-grade confirmation class basketball games. Yes, there are plenty of options to watch some hoops action!

Every season both the men's and women's teams, whether high school or college, have high hopes for a winning season and advancing in the section playoffs.

This is also a season of hope in the church. Advent, meaning "coming one" - in reference to both the coming of Christ in Bethlehem and his second coming on the last day - started on Sunday, Dec. 2. And the first Advent candle lit on the wreath was the candle of hope.

We need hope. Unfortunately, in basketball and in life, we don't always have a winning season or even a good week or day. The game of life is sometimes fraught with hopelessness due to ill health or disease, broken family-or friend relationships, substance abuse, financial difficulties and the like. Sometimes we are overwhelmed with a sense of guilt due to our sinful actions. Like in the game of basketball gone bad, we commit fouls against God and each other, make mistakes, cause turnovers, and travel. But there is hope!

1 Peter 1:13 alerts us to the hope that is revealed and found in Jesus Christ: "Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming."

During this Advent season and every day of the year, God reminds us to abandon the empty hope that we often look for in ourselves and the world, and to set our hearts and minds on the real and lasting hope that is found in his son Jesus Christ. Jesus is all about hope!

And there is plenty of hope to go around. God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus that we might truly know what grace and hope looks like. Jesus demonstrated his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, he died for us and then rose again, giving us the assurance that there is no situation in life, not one, in which there isn't hope.

1 Peter 1:3 reads: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead..."

John Wooden, one of the most successful coaches in college basketball history, said this: "Basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior. Until that is done, we are on an aimless course that runs in circles and goes nowhere." In other words, place your ultimate hope not even in hoops, but in Jesus.

What makes John Wooden's quote so significant is that it comes from a coach nicknamed the "Wizard of Westwood." As head coach at UCLA, Wooden won 10 NCAA national championships in a 12-year period, including an unprecedented seven in a row.

I don't know what the future holds for our local hoops teams, but I do know who holds the future: our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His life, his birth, death and resurrection, his hope-filled story and our response to it is the most important game in town. Jesus Christ and the hope he offers is a slam dunk!

A blessed Advent and Christmas to all,

Pastor Jeffrey Walther, pastor of St. Matthews Lutheran Church in Esko