(Note, that I've become the moderator of Jesus Savior Church by being its only online member on this web site.  If someone would like to take over this responsibility, feel free to do so.)

It's that time of year again.

The religious in me is very excited as Holy Week begins and Easter approaches.  The secularist in me is very excited as March Madness is primed for another exciting conclusion to the basketball season.

Sports watching and other forms of legitimate entertainment is a dicey proposition for the committed Christian.  There is nothing explicitly wrong with sports watching, but it does seem to miss the mark of "take up your cross" or "love the Lord your God with your whole mind" or "go out and preach the gospel to all nations".

I love watching the NCAA tournament.  Some like their video games, their whodunit novels, or their weekly prime time drama series, but for my money there is nothing more exciting.  I'll probably watch a good percentage of the games, but I'm at least uncomfortable about the prospect with regards to my faith.  Could I be more perfect doing other activities?  Jesus commands perfection.  My only solace is the seemingly lame excuse of human weakness needing rest time to recoup for the week's other spiritual battles.  Still, I don't know of any saints that have bled Carolina blue or hummed Rocky Top after every victory.

I half-lied in the previous paragraph.  I do know of one thing more exciting.  It's just that it is easy for the story to becomes so humdrum as it is played out year after year.  But I expect my intelligence will never fully grasp how some omnipotent entity loved poor nothing-me so much as to take on my limited human nature and to die a cruel, horrible death so that I could live in him forever.  And the gospels show how this amazing story took place, how the brush strokes have been applied by God from the earliest moments of human existence.  If we let the story be fresh in our minds, we see drama that no basketball game can ever approach.

My roommate in college in Lexington on Easter about ten years back, just a week after the University of Kentucky had just won the national basketball championship, went around the hoops-crazed town honking in his car with another friend, index fingers raised aloft, yelling at the top of the lungs - Yay!!!!  We're #1 - Jesus is risen!!!  Woooo!  God is awesome!!!

Let us pray that God gives us the proper perspective in life.  These nice stories (like the NCAAs) are part of God's creation and to be admired and also enjoyed if you happen to like that sort of thing.  However, God is first and nothing can change that, and as Christians we have the obligation to show our world how we understand that fact in our actions.

For anyone reading this, have a blessed Holy Week.  I pray that we Christians everywhere will experience true contrition for our sins, that by dwelling on the mysteries of God's perfect love and sacrifice for us, we will try to perfectly align our lives to His will.

May God bless us - in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.