World Cup
During the recent World Cup soccer matches, I don't think I watched any of the games. But what I did watch was various clips on social media of the goings on of the World Cup. Clips of the various fans and clips by the various fans. These scenes of thousands of people having a truly joyful time here to watch their national team - you cannot watch them without being affected by them in some way.
Of course, it seems we'd have to lead with Scotland. Their fans "invaded" the Boston area and turned it upside down. Thousands of fans are at a baseball game, and between innings, a song is played over the PA system. The Scottish fans sing along with gusto, and when play resumes and the music stops, thousands of fans are still singing the song. They have a silly habit of placing traffic cones on top of statues. The "Tartan Army" marches around town with bagpipes and drums. The fans are having the time of their lives while in Boston while they cheer on the national team. And they take care not to leave a mess - at one event that went on into midnight in a park, a city sanitation worker came in the next morning anticipating a huge mess to clean up - the fans had already cleaned up after themselves.
Fans from Norway are "rowing" on escalators. Thousands of them, in their flag of Norway shirts are in the stadiums "rowing". In unison! It's like thousands of Norwegian rowers are rowing the stadium along.
The fans of the Netherlands - the Dutch, are lined up hundreds, if not thousands, deep down a city street. A song is playing from the "oranjefans" bus, and they are all jumping up and down and jumping to the left then jumping to the right. Flags are waving in the crowd, beach balls are bouncing about, and orange smoke rises from the crowd.
South Korean fans are in Mexico. It appears as if the Mexican fans and South Korean fans are treating each other as long lost friends.
I've seen scenes of Japanese fans having their first taste of Texas BBQ, either with a big slice of brisket or with ribs. I've seen a New Zealand man get his first taste of one of my favorite southern treats - boiled peanuts. And he likes it! (Or maybe he was just being polite).
In all of these scenes, you have people of different nationalities, all doing something different, but they are all coming together.
There are probably other scenes that I’ve missed, but this is a good sampling. A variety of thoughts come to mind when witnessing all of this. But something I’ve been thinking of comes from Revelation 21, starting in verse 22. The passage says – “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.”
The passage in Revelation comes to mind for me, particularly the part about the nations coming into the holy city that came down out of heaven. Kings will bring their splendor into the heavenly city. I'm reminded of a book by John Mark Hicks where he pointed out that an Eskimo will have different ways of worshipping God than a Saharan desert dweller would. Our world is filled with a variety of cultures, differences abound, and yet there are things that bring us all together. I remember years ago on a trip to London, and it had just rained, and there was a puddle on the sidewalk. A British mother was not paying close attention to her 3-4 year old child, who took delight in splashing in the puddle. That's not a thing unique to our culture, or British culture, that's a thing children all across the world like to do.
Sometimes we think people have to be just like us in order to worship God or to be pleasing to him, or to worship him in an appropriate way. The World Cup is what is currently bringing all these cultures together, but one day we look forward to the nations parading into the heavenly city, brought together not by a sporting event, but brought together by Jesus. Where joy abounds from the salvation given by our God. And all peoples will worship, in their different ways, but give worship indeed to the one God. Paul's analogy of the body is a great one in this instance – in a body, there are many members, but the many members make up one body. There are many cultures intermingling during this World Cup, but there is a bond that exists beyond these cultures. And in this diversity of peoples, all are brought together into a oneness, not by a World Cup, but by Jesus. Ephesians 1:10 – “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”
-Mike Hendricks