The Great Umpire.... 

Have you ever wondered why every sport has a referee or, in the case of baseball, an umpire? Referees and umpires play a crucial role in ensuring fair play, upholding the rules, and maintaining the integrity of the game. Their presence helps prevent conflicts, enforce regulations, and provide impartial judgments, essential for the smooth functioning of any sport. In baseball, umpires hold a special significance as they are responsible for making critical decisions on balls, strikes, and player actions, influencing the outcome of the game. Their keen judgment and adherence to the rules contribute to the essence and beauty of baseball, making them indispensable figures on the field. Simply put, without the ump, the game of baseball is not the beautiful game that so many of us have grown to love.

This significance is by no means coincidental, especially as we pass through the Easter season. The reality is that we are all players in the game of life, a game that, though rough at times, is undeniably beautiful. Just like a good umpire in baseball, in the game of life, we have The Great Ump, who upholds all justice. The story of life, as told through the entire Word of God, is a story of a fallen creation, fallen from righteousness through the sin which we all inherit. This sin led to a fallen world, now riddled with tragedy, loss, pain, war, and of course, cancer. As terrible as these things are, the greatest byproduct of sin is much worse. This byproduct is a totally depraved heart, which eternally separates us from the presence of a righteous God. The heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. In this, God is just, all of the time. As Deuteronomy 32:4 states, “all of His ways are just”. In simple terms, we will always receive justice because God will always uphold justice. Unfortunately for us as sinful humans, we know that justice for sin is death; justice is eternal separation from God: “for the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). 

As Carly and I have been praying for Dad, she recently shared a post with me which talked about how many scholars pinpoint the exact date of Jesus’ resurrection, a date we just celebrated on Easter Sunday, to be that of April 3, 33AD. It is not a coincidence to us that in the midst of dad’s battle with cancer, his original chemo start date was moved from April 1 to April 3. As Dad went into chemo today he went in knowing that 1,991 years ago today, Christ came into the game to win it. As they put the chemo into his port today, he knew the game was already won. That is the definition of blessed assurance and to God be all the glory forever and ever.  

The first day of chemo went exactly as we prayed. He came home afterwards, walked two miles, and answered work emails and phone calls. He is sporting his chemo purse for the next two days and the team mom (who is afraid of needles) will have to remove it in two days. So far he feels completely normal... but we know the drugs don't show their ugly side until a few days in. So continue to pray for minimal short term and long term side effects.

Back to umpiring the game.... what makes God the Great Ump is His response to this great problem, however, brings about a great paradox. He loves us and wants us to have a relationship with Him, yet as a just God, He must uphold justice for our sin which separates us from Him. The paradox is the existence of both grace and justice. How can grace and justice coincide in full? How can we have life and death at the same time? After all, is God not rich in mercy and love, yet constant in upholding justice? The paradox has a simple but costly solution, which is that out of the greatest act of love, He sent His own son to walk this earth. Jesus walked with, lived amongst, and dined with the most broken of sinners and ultimately died at their hands. This love was in the form of the greatest gift of grace imaginable. This love was a substitution. Jesus came into our game to win in. He entered into this world and substituted himself to be killed blamelessly for the sake of this paradox; that while we are still yet sinners, Christ died for us, taking on the full consequences of our own sin upon himself so that justice can prevail yet we no longer have to endure it. But it didn’t end there! As an atoning sacrifice, Jesus rose from the dead, the significance of which is fundamentally essential in understanding the beautiful nature of this game of life in which we are all players. This means He is a living sacrifice. This means that the sacrifice made 2000 years ago remains constant today and forever more. Christ chose to do for us what no man or woman can do for themselves. Through Him, although we remain in a broken world in which my dad has cancer, our relationship with God no longer has to remain broken…dad’s relationship with God IS NOT BROKEN. This makes the outcome of this game beautiful for those who call Jesus, Lord, like Dad.

In closing, I want to share the realities of what is ahead. The reality is that chemo is rough on the body. Although we pray for a smooth chemo process and for ultimate healing of the cancer, we know that the gift of grace in light of his situation does not mean that he will not face extreme hardship. It doesn’t mean the outcomes will be what we hope and certainly pray for. It will be rough. I find myself holding tight to a conversation in Exodus 33 between God and Moses at what was called “the tent of meeting” as they wandered the rough desert. In verse 3, God said to Moses, “Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people”. God was tired of their sin. However, Moses' response was incredibly powerful. Moses said, in verse 15, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here” to which God ultimately said “This very thing that you have spoken I will do”.
Moses would have rather been in Hell on earth but with God than to be in Heaven on earth but without God. But Moses' response was not “thank you”. His response in verse 18 was “Please show me your glory.” The best teams in history faced trials. Nothing is better than an underdog story of a team that overcame great adversity, a team that had their own desert experience, a ‘miracle on ice’ story. Likewise in the game of life, some of the greatest disciples were made through their own desert experience.  I would even argue that without a desert experience, one cannot be forged, for that takes fire! This is why James tells us to consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds. This is our trial; this is our desert experience! It is rough. It will likely get worse in many ways. But how great that we have God with us and are assured of the outcome of this game.

So here we are, the seventh-inning stretch. Just as umpires are essential in baseball for ensuring fair play and upholding the rules, we find comfort in God as the ultimate umpire in this life. We believe that God, with His omniscience and omnipotence, serves as the Great Ump, overseeing the events of the world and ensuring justice and righteousness prevail. In the same way that umpires make critical decisions on the field, guiding the course of the game, we see God’s words and His promises as a guiding light for us, and for humanity towards moral and spiritual truth and peace. Just as umpires' judgments are final in baseball, we trust God's judgments as absolute and just, providing a sense of order and purpose to the complexities of life, and this is certainly that. Just as baseball umpires contribute to the beauty and essence of the game, we as a family are assured in God's presence as integral to the beauty and meaning of existence. For that, in light of these circumstances, we choose to thank Him for His gift of grace, we chose to find joy in this trial, and we chose to follow Moses in asking God to show us His glory. Most importantly, through it all, we choose to call Jesus, Lord.

In Christ, 
Will Worthington, the better looking and much younger of Bob’s two sons.

🐻BEARSTRONG🐻