“My power is made perfect in weakness.”
In 2005, one of the best Major League Baseball players
was Lance Berkman. Born near Houston, Texas, Lance had the opportunity to be
the hometown hero as his Houston Astros—of which he was the first baseman—played
the Saint Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series. The
winner would go on to the World Series.
Near the end of the game, in the bottom of the eighth
inning, Lance hit a three-run homerun to put his team ahead. After the inning,
Lance—a devout Christian—began to pray to God: “Lord, if you let us win this
game, I will give you all the glory in the post-game press conference” – you know
how that goes: a Christian-athlete, during the interviews, starts off by
saying, “I just want to start off by giving credit to my Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ …”
And that’s what Lance was telling God he would do if the
Lord let them win.
Well, in the top of the ninth inning, during the Cardinals’
last at-bat, the most-prolific home-run hitter in Cardinals’ history walked to
the plate: Albert Pujols. Albert, also known as “The Machine,” was going to
face Houston’s closer: Brad Lidge. Brad wound up, threw his pitch, and before a
full-house of crazed Houston Astro fans, Albert Pujols hit that ball into the stratosphere.
The Cardinals were now ahead and the Astro fans were quiet. Despairing.
Lance Berkman, the first baseman, said it was so quiet
you could hear Albert Pujols’ cleats digging the dirt as he rounded first base.
“This is not what we had agreed on,” Lance said to God.
This was a crushing defeat.
And most people thought that the Astros wouldn’t be able
to come back from such a defeat. But they did. Surprisingly, they beat the Cardinals
in that series. Yet, it wasn’t happily ever after. The Astros lost (quite
spectacularly) in the World Series that year.
Lance Berkman faced another crushing defeat.
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“My power is made perfect in weakness.”
Fast-forward six years to 2011. Lance was now playing
first base for the Saint Louis Cardinals. And that year, the Cardinals made it
to the World Series. They made it to Game Six, but were behind by two runs in
the bottom of the tenth inning (this was the game that they were down by two
runs and were down to their final strike, but they miraculous game back that
inning). Now they were down again and whose turn was it to come up to the
plate?
Lance Berkman.
Now, if you are a Cardinals fan, you remember the 2011
Game Six as the game where David Freese hit the glorious game-winning home-run
that would send the Cardinals on to a Game Seven and, ultimately, to the World
Series Championship.
Everybody remembers David Freese. He was the hometown
hero. Born and raised in St. Louis.
Few remember what Lance did.
Lance, that year, had something like thirty homeruns. A great
year. And, as it was near the end of his career, it was a special year. (In his
final two years, he would go on to hit eight homers… combined). Few remember
that.
Few remember that, with two outs and the opposition up
two runs and Lance facing two strikes, Lance was probably going to be the one
standing at the plate as the Cardinals’ season came to an end.
I can’t imagine losing not just one, but two World Series.
Before the game, Lance had prayed: “Lord, if I am in a
position where the game is on the line and you give me the opportunity of being
up to bat, please just give me peace.” As he approached the plate in the bottom
of the tenth with the game on the line, he made that prayer again: “Just give
me peace.”
And no one remembers: Lance hit the game-tying single.
Not sexy nor glorious like a homerun. But it tied the game.
And in the next inning. David Freese would hit his famous
homer to win it.
And get the glory.
And it was David that was the focus of the post-game
interview.
I love this story because, Lance was loved in the
clubhouse; a great teammate. Had perspective, leadership. Was named the National
League Comeback Player of the Year and also the Cardinals’ Teammate of the Year.
And part of me wonders whether that all came from having previously tasted
devastating defeat.
“My power is made perfect in weakness.”
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Jesus was supposed to be the hometown hero.
The Messiah – right there from Nazareth.
But the people of Nazareth “took offense at Him.” They
rejected him. Why?
Well, Nazareth was known to be a kind of armpit of
Israel. When the first apostles came to Nathaniel and told him that they had
found the Messiah in Nazareth, Nathaniel snorted: “Can anything good come from
Nazareth?” (John 1:46).
And the people there believed that. They didn’t think
anything good could come from such a
forgettable place—much less did they think that The Messiah could come from their streets.
They knew the streets. They knew each other. So, how in
the world would God – well, how could power and greatness come from a carpenter’s
shop? How could the Messiah come from an ordinary family? How could any prophet
– how could anything good – come from
Nazareth?
And so they took offense at Him, as though to say to
Jesus: “You think you are somehow different from us? You think you are better
than us? You are part of the same ordinary and weak stuff that we are made
from.”
And Jesus was amazed at their lack of faith – for had not
God, when He chose the Jews, chosen not the splendid and the powerful and the
glorious, but the lost and wandering? They had forgotten their very origins:
God is always choosing the weak and lowly—and employing them for the great and
glorious.
Yes, he was amazed at their lack of faith—that God had
chosen Moses, a slave-girl’s son, to be the greatest leader of His people; that
God had chosen David, a humble shepherd, from the tiniest town of Bethlehem;
that God had chosen the harlot Rahab … that God could choose whomever from wherever
– even the weakest from the lowest – to be the hometown hero and the greatest.
But they took offense at Him.
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I think each of us has a little of that Nazareth in us.
We think: I wanted to do great things in my life, but as
I have grown older, I have found that I’m really nobody special. I’m weak and
sinful and I live in fly-over country. Nothing great will come from my life.
We think that we have to be holy or perfect or at least
somewhat good before God can do something with us. I say: why would God use me
when I’m so sinful? Why would God use me when I am old?
The alcoholic: why would God use someone with addictions?
The mentally ill: how could God use someone who struggles
so much to see reality clearly?
Yes, all of us fall for the lie that God will only use
the great and the perfect to do the great and advance the perfect.
But: “my power is made perfect in weakness.”
David Freese – did you know that, during that season when
he hit the game-winning homerun in that World Series—did you know that he was
battling tremendous social anxiety and depression?
Saint Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower, known for
incredibly sugary passages of love and sacrifice – she battled incredibly dark
moments of doubt.
Saint Paul, as you heard in that passage from his second
letter to the Corinthians, battled “a thorn in the flesh.” We don’t know what
that was. It could have been a physical pain; it could have been a morally
sinful inclination that he had – what we do know is that he asked God to take
it away. Three times, “Lord, take it away.” But God didn’t take it away.
To use Lance Berkman’s language: “Lord, this is not what
we had agreed on.”
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But praise God for that.
That area in your life that you are struggling with –
maybe that is precisely the area that God is going to use to do great things.
Maybe that part of you that you are most ashamed about or
embarrassed about—maybe that is the Nazareth that you think nothing good will
come from, but from which will come the Savior.
Maybe that stuff is preciously the stuff that God wants
us to bring to Him and say, “Ok, Lord, I believe that you can bring about good,
even from here. Even though it isn’t perfect or holy or even good.”
And maybe that is what we should ask for: for that kind
of faith. If Jesus was amazed at Nazareth’s lack of faith, I want Him to be
amazed at the depth of my faith! If Nazareth believed that nothing special
could come from such an ordinary armpit of Israel, I will believe that
everything special can come from His work in the ordinary, even embarrassing
areas of my life.
And where you couldn’t do your miraculous work there,
Lord, do it here.
Jesus, you are my hometown hero.