In our Soccer series, let’s come today to Part 2 Instruction…
Unlike team games like Cricket where captain holds sway, the one who “holds the strings” in the game of football is an unseen (in the field) manager or the coach. It is he who spends countless hours molding his team into a winning combination. Right from training… to strategizing… to final team selection, a manager sheds his “blood and sweat” in order his team and its supporters taste “sweet success”.
Though in the sidelines, during the game his involvement is total! Do not we see the whole gamut of emotions registering in his countenance…from agony to ecstasy, from anxiety to relief when TV camera’s zoom in now and then to show the global audience his varying emotions, during the key moments of the match?
Could there have been a greater manager than Christ? Though the disciples were in some cases from diametrically opposite backgrounds, he fashioned them into a winning unit, who would now play with a single goal in mind. Oh yes, Nehemiah made men of different professions work side-by-side (a goldsmith and a perfume maker -Nehemiah 3:8) but Christ is greater, for he accomplished a far more difficult task of making men of TOTALLY DIFFERENT IDEOLOGIES work shoulder to shoulder.
Imagine a Taliban terrorist and US marine sinking their differences for a common cause and playing in a same team in a football field in Kabul! Preposterous? Well, that exactly is the picture which comes to the fore when we see Matthew (a pro-Roman government tax collector before becoming a disciple-Matt 9:9-13) and Simon the Zealot (violently opposed to Roman government-Mark 3:18) putting their shoulders together to the “Gospel wheel”, as it were…
How could Christ do it? By his own exemplary uncompromising lifestyle, which was all about being willing to lay EVERYTHING, I REPEAT EVERYTHING at the altar for the glory of the Father, leave alone petty (relatively speaking that is) ideological differences?
Consider this verse …“In my first book I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1). Look at the sequencing of the words, DO precedes TEACH. Right? He would not ask his men to do anything, which he himself would not do before (from the foreword “They call me coach”… thanks Bill Walton)!
He also trained up His mostly unschooled disciples in a way that the religious leaders of his day simply marveled… “When the Council saw the boldness of Peter and John, and could see that that they were obviously uneducated non-professionals, they were amazed and realized WHAT BEING WITH JESUS HAD DONE FOR THEM” (Acts 4:13 TLB).
Do you know one more secret- post Pentecostal experience- in spirit he was now WITHIN them unseen by the World…? Further a look at his strategies would convince us that he put the right men in the “right position”.
While on the subject, ever pondered why Jesus chose ‘doubting Thomas’ of all apostles -a person whose name is dubiously synonymous with cynicism- to minister for Him in India (a country with a deep religious mindset)? Only a rationalist like Thomas could have logically expounded the sound Biblical precepts to men who were well founded in matters of religion (Indians as always were quite religious in Ist century AD also). Tradition has it that having studied the Vedas and seen them speaking about the “coming Lamb of God”, LIKE A TRUE RATIONALIST, Thomas pointed at all the Vedic proofs relating to Christ with conviction to religious men of his day. Is it any wonder then, that the very first people Thomas baptized in his ministry in India were orthodox namboodhiri Brahmins in Palayur, Kerala! For more on the Vedic Christ-related proofs, you may click on this link… http://www.jandsmministries.com/vadic.asp
Finally consider the unwitting compliment (Acts 17:6 KJV) that the enemies (I repeat not friends) of the Christ’s disciples paid to them- “THESE MEN HAVE TURNED THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN”-and the picture of the HISTORY’S GREATEST COACH emerges with no shades of grey! Boy, disciples’ accomplishment thanks to Christ’s enablement was not merely about winning the World Cup but the World itself for the Master!!!
By the way Christian leader, are you faithfully following your Master’s footsteps in being an example to people around you (Titus 2:7)?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, we simply praise thee for thy man-management. More we look into the Scriptures, more we understand about several facets’ of your unique personality. We submit ourselves to thy training and those of us who are leaders, enable us to always lead by example. Amen.
Suresh Manoharan
Hyderabad-India
www.jandsmministries.com
(To access the entire “Lessons From World Cup Football” mini-series, please click here.)