A few weeks ago Vicki and I traveled to Montevideo to watch a first round tournament game of boy’s basketball between the Thunderhawks and the Benson Braves. Some dear friends of ours have a son, Travis, who is a senior and we were excited to watch him play.
Montevideo got off to a good start with the Thunderhawks scoring a few quick baskets. Then about two minutes into the game one of the referees called a foul on one of the Thunderhawk players while he was attempting to rebound a Benson shot. The Montevideo coach was livid; apparently from his perspective the ref had completely blown the call. A great injustice had taken place against his player and he wanted the ref to know it.
The game resumed with the Montevideo coach harassing the ref as he passed him by. After the two teams had made a couple of trips up and down the floor, our friend’s son, Travis, was charged and found guilty of committing a foul while a Benson player was attempting a short shot near the basket. Travis appeared to be disturbed by the judgment, but not nearly as distressed as was the Montevideo coach. And once again the coach felt it was his responsibility to inform the refs that they had committed another injustice against one of his players.
And then, just four minutes into the game, the ref called another foul on the Montevideo team, and you got it, the coach became enraged and began petitioning the refs to dismiss the charges. Meanwhile, Travis was still processing his resentment over the injustice against him a few minutes earlier so he thought the break in the action would be a good time for him to express his feelings to another ref about their job performance. Apparently, while processing Travis’s comments, the referee felt he had crossed the line when sharing his feelings, and so he discerned that Travis deserved a technical foul.
Then after receiving the technical foul, Travis immediately thought to himself, well that’s not fair, and so then without thinking, he again expressed his feelings to the ref that the technical foul was not warranted but rather “that is bull@#$%!” And yep you know it, the referee felt even more disrespected so he gave Travis his second technical foul. And with that, Travis was on his way to the locker room for a nice long warm shower.
As you can imagine, in the 90 seconds while all of this was unfolding, the Montevideo fans are silent until they discover with great dismay that one of their star players has just been ejected. And so while a Benson player is shooting the six free throws, and while the Montevideo fans begin to express their chants of outrage, I began to reflect on how people react when they feel they are unjustly mistreated. Again it was a reminder that anxiety often makes people stupid.
On the way home my thoughts drifted to the injustice on the night of Jesus’ arrest, mock trial, mocking, beating and crucifixion. Was it really fair that Jesus was despised and rejected by mankind? Was it fair that he took up our pain and bore our suffering? Was it fair that Jesus was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities (Isaiah 53)? Doesn’t it make you want to petition the Father and tell him what a “bad call” it was to make his Son become sin for us so that we could become the righteousness of God?
No of course not! In his wisdom, God knew the only way to overcome the injustice of our sin was grace! Thank God for that call! And may it be so with you and me that we would have the wisdom to know when to confront injustice, when to extend grace, and always to remain self-differentiated.
Grace to you and peace, Mike Altena