Well what a difference a week makes. England are now out of the World Cup. Tonight, of course, we’ll face France for third place but this is very much a consolation prize. For a lot of the match it looked like it might go a different way, but our hopes were dashed again. So close.
Whilst, as I’ve said - I’m not particularly a football fan, there is a special kind of English grief that seems to come for some with football. The nearly, the not-quite, the heartbreak snatched from the jaws of hope. If you're feeling it this weekend, you are, I’m sure, not alone.
But here's the thing about defeat - the Bible again is full of it. The disciples watched the one they thought would change everything die on a cross on a Friday afternoon. All that hope, extinguished. Peter wept. They hid. It was over.
And then Sunday came.
The Christian story doesn't pretend that loss isn't real, or that it doesn't hurt. It sits with the Saturday - the day of grief and confusion and dashed hope. But it refuses to let that defeat be the final word. Paul writes in Romans that "suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope" and not a thin, fragile hope, but one that does not put us to shame.
England will play again.
And whether or not they ever lift that trophy, we are held by the one who has already won the thing that matters most.
No comments:
Post a Comment