Rev. Dr. Duke Jeyaraj
In this Christmas Season we can copy Jesus and Paul who wrapped key Gospel elements around contemporary events and quotes from non-Biblical authors (see Luke 13:1-5; Acts 17:28). I want to show how this can be done with some magic moments/heart-breaking moments still in our memories from the 2023 ODI World Cup which India lost in the Final.
THAT PLANNING MEETING
There was an undated planning meeting which Captain Rohit Sharma and Head Coach Rahul Dravid called. All the members of the India teams were present in that meeting. In that meeting a volunteer was sought to accelerate the team score by taking risks at the start of the innings. Usually, juniors are given this role. But the Captain Rohit Sharma himself raised his hand as others looked a little stunned. “I will take care of this,” he said. And take care of it, he certainly did. On an average He ensured India raced to 80 runs in the first 10 overs in the 2023 World Cup. He played aggressively as an opener hitting 31 sixes during the Cup – a record.
A planning meeting took place in eternity past. In that meeting Jesus raised his hand when volunteers were sought to take a body to go into the earth to become the perfect sacrifice (Hebrews 10:5). When the first Christmas happened, Jesus voluntarily entered virgin Mary’s womb without the help of a man thanks to the ‘impossible made possible’ work of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:34-37). He took on a sinless body which grew first inside Mary’s womb and later outside it (Luke 2:52). He offered himself as a perfect sacrifice for the sins of the World on the Cross (I Peter 2:24). “He himself bore our sins in His body,” Peter writes (I Peter 2:24). Jesus did not delegate this difficult job to someone else just as Rohit Sharma did not delegate the tough job of accelerating the score at the top of the Indian innings in the ODI World Cup 2023 to someone else junior to Him in the Team.
THAT MATCH-TURNING CATCH
Australia’s Travis Head ran backwards in desperation and brilliantly caught Rohit Sharma’s miscued rocket in the Cup Final 2023. The 90,000 plus strong partisan crowd who watched this inside the Stadium in Ahmedabad were stunned into silence. If only, Rohit continued to bat for a few more overs, or till the end, India probably would have gotten to a score very similar to their match-winning semifinal score of 397 versus New Zealand. Rohit was looking that ominous when he got out have scored 10 runs in his previous two balls. Travis Head’s catch was a match-turning catch. It changed the history of the India-Australia ODI Final 2023.
This match-turning catch leads me to talk about the ultimate history-changing and life-changing event of our planet – the Cross of Jesus. Couple of events which happened to Jesus during the first Christmas pointed ahead to this history-changing event. One of the gifts the wisemen gave Jesus was Myrrh (Matthew 2:11). Myrrh those days were used to preserve dead-bodies. A dead-body preservative as a gift to a new-born? How inappropriate! Perhaps the wisemen knew from their study of Old Testament Scriptures that baby Jesus was born to die (Isaiah 53 passage?)! Born to die for the sins of the planet! When Simeon blessed Mary after she delivered Jesus, he said, “a sword will pierce your very soul” (Luke 2:35). This is an obvious reference to the history-turning event of the Cross of Christ which Mary would watch live and have a proverbial sword pierce through her being.
THAT SLOW MID-OVERS MARCH
After India lost the marauding Rohit Sharma and in-form Shreyas Iyer who had just arrived at the crease, they went into the damage-control mode in the 2023 Cup Final. The batsmen in the middle, Virat Kohli and K.L. Rahul played without taking any risks. The result was this: the boundaries dried up. K. L. Rahul was the worst culprit here scoring a mere 60 plus off more than a 100 balls. India hoped Surya Kumar Yadav would accelerate them to a total of 300 atleast as he was still around towards the end of the innings even as wickets fell regularly. But that was not to be. This slow march from overs 11 to 50 cost India dear. This robbed them of the opportunity to post a championship-winning score.
But the Shepherds of the original Christmas story were unlike the flopped slow-coach Indian middle order of the ODI Cup Final. “And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger” – the Bible records in Luke 2:16. They challenge us today to run to Jesus in repentance and faith to receive our free gift of salvation. If we drag our feet in order to do this, it can become perilous, more perilous than the loss of a ODI World Cup! The Holy Spirit who speaks to us now asking us to repent and come to Christ will not keep speaking to us forever (Gen. 6:3). After we die – and death can come to any of us at any second – we cannot come to Jesus in repentance (Hebrews 9:27). After Jesus returns – he can return to the planet like a thief in the night at any second – it would be too late to come to him as He is Saviour today and Judge tomorrow (2 Peter 3:10; Hebrews 9:28). So let us surrender our lives to Jesus the Christmas Baby turned Perfect Sacrifice Jesus without any further delay!
THAT UNRAISED FINGER
India dismissed three of the Australian batsmen including centurion in the ODI Cup Final 2015, Steve Smith. Australia’s score was not even 50. India’s hopes of an unlikely win in the Cup Final 2023 soared. However Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne had other ideas. They put on a partnership. That’s when Captain Rohit Sharma threw the ball to the “boot-lace bomber” Jasprit Bumrah. In the 28th over with Australia still needing about 80+ runs to win, Bumrah’s yorker struck Labuschagne on the legs and screamed for leg-before. The umpire did not raise his finger. Rohit Sharma sought to review the umpire’s decision through video replay. The ball was going to hit the stumps, the review showed. If only the Umpire had raised his finger Labuschagne would have been out. India could have come back into the Final – thanks to that breakthrough! Harsha Bhogle who was on the air said this in-effect about this moment: India’s fate in the Final were sealed by milli-meters, thanks to this “Umpire’s Call not out” decision!
The Ultimate Umpire of the planet is God. He is called “the Judge of all the earth” (Genesis 18:25). It is his “call” that all should be saved, including everyone reading this piece (2 Peter 3:9; 1 Timothy 2:4). That is why Jesus came to this earth to open the door of Salvation that anyone who repents and trusts him would walk into that door. That umpire’s call of the 28th over in the India-Australia final sealed India’s fate in the Cup Final. But the Divine Umpire’s call open an invitation for us so that we can be saved and seal our fate for eternity! How are we responding?
(Dr. Duke Jeyaraj is the founder of Grabbing the Google Generation from Gehenna Mission. As an itinerant he has covered 20 Indian States and 7 countries preaching the Word. He is the author of three books, one of which is Straight Talk, a book on sex, love, marriage, porn, phone addiction and more. WhatsApp him on 918886040605 to know more. Duke’s ministry, the G4 mission, is viewer/reader-supported.
NOTE: This article first appeared first in Aim Magazine, Dec 2024 Issue. Aim is published by Evangelical Fellowship of India.
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