My Broken Bracket and the Unbroken Promise
Like millions of other people (about 23 million, to be exact), I temporarily took up crystal ball gazing as a vocation for a day and filled out an NCAA tournament bracket. I did this despite the fact that all such previous attempts met with disaster. I am about as good at this as I am at scuba diving with sharks (which is to say, not good at all, and please start an intervention if you see me attempting it). Nevertheless, I fearlessly plunged ahead, and when I was finished, I was as confident of victory as the Titanic passengers were about getting across the Atlantic.
Sigh. I never learn.
Of course, I had Oakland beating Kentucky (I did not). In fact, I hit picks with the accuracy of FAU taking three-pointers against Northwestern. And Clemson over New Mexico? I saw that coming too. Nope. And what about Samford, my pick for the role of Cinderella? The glass slipper did not fit. Yale wins? Really??? Yes, Yale did win, which means I did not - a theme playing repeatedly through the last two days.
Oh, I got a few right. I should emphasize “few” in that statement to keep it honest.
It turns out that prophesying is a tricky business, especially when it’s for keeps. In fact, the Hebrew people took ‘prophesying’ very seriously, and if you uttered a false prophecy, you were toast—literally. It wasn’t just your bracket that ended up broken!
The truth is that the real Hebrew prophets were 100% accurate. This wasn’t because they studied statistical probabilities and made the best guess they could. No, they spoke as ‘holy men of old, carried along by the Holy Spirit.’ That’s why they could ‘look ahead and speak,’ as Peter describes such activity in Acts 2.
The ancient Hebrew prophets saw some things they couldn’t understand but said them anyway. Among these, they saw their future King riding into Jerusalem on a donkey rather than a war horse. They said that vision made them ‘prisoners of hope.’ Imagine it - a humble king riding victoriously into Jerusalem to liberate his people. And he did.
At Spanish River, we will mark the fulfillment of that ancient prophecy tomorrow, Palm Sunday. That opens a seven-day journey often referred to as Holy Week, the seven days in which so much of what the ancient prophets foresaw and spoke of came to fruition. From children shouting ‘Hosanna!’ and a mob crying ‘Crucify,’ all the way to the stunned group of disciples who saw the Master murdered, dead, and buried, suddenly standing among them again and saying, “Shalom,” it’s safe to say that this week is like no other, and it demands our full attention.
Good News for the Broken
The good news is that while there’s really no hope for my capacity to predict the future, I remain a “prisoner of hope” to the one the Hebrew prophets saw so clearly long ago. Jesus the Savior is our hope for this life and, even more significantly, for life to come. The promise of this week is that soon, all things will be made new. The blessed hope is ours because Christ has Died, Christ has Risen, and Christ will come again.
Our brackets might be broken, but God's promises never will be. The promised Messiah has come, his promised mercy is offered to the world, and the new life promised in Christ is ours.
22+ million brackets were submitted to ESPN, and by the end of last night’s final game, not a single one was left unbroken. We have ALL come short of the glory.