Wrong Stadium Tar Heel!

When I heard about the UNC game ball landing in Wallace Wade Stadium Saturday Night, I could not help take a poke at the Tar Heels. How do you explain that?

I am a huge football fan. I could care less what happens on the basketball court. Roy who? Coach K (can I buy a vowel?)? Actually I do like basketball. It gets me through the winter in time for spring practice. Now that a Birmingham man, a Bear Bryant Disciple, and the guy who coached both Peyton and Eli Manning is the head ball coach at Duke, Duke has the opportunity to arise from the ashes of embarrassment to at least the level of mediocrity. So I thought I might stoke the fire of the UNC-Duke gridiron rivalry, if you can call it that.

Wallace Wade actually was the head coach at Alabama who started it all for the Crimson Tide. He won three mythical national championships at Alabama in 1925, '26, and '30 before leaving the Capstone for Duke. He wanted to coach football at a school that valued academics. Well he got it. Though Wade never won a national championship at Duke, he did coach two Rose Bowl teams, losing both. By the way, Wade and Cutcliffe are not the only Crimson connections to Duke. Former Alabama quarterback and Bryant Disciple Steve Sloan coached Duke in the mid 80's before returning to his alma mater as Athletic Director.

Though you may not be interested enough in football trivia, especially in North Carolina, the Chapel Hill blunder is the perfect illustration of human sinfulness. Let me explain. When we think of sin, we think of stumbles, temptations, white lies, coveting (we've all done that, right? Actually, coveting is a more churchy sounding word for lust). And these things are not good things. Don't hear me wrong and don't underestimate sins with the little S.

But Sin with a capital 'S' as, Paul describes it, is much more than that. Paul says that we are slaves to Sin and that we are dead in Sin. We do not realize the depth of the problem either until it is too late, or until God acts. The problem of Sin, of which little sins serve as perfect examples, is that we are headed off course with our lives. Though the pilot of the plane and the parachuters flew a perfect flight, executed the proper procedures and though the parachuter executed a perfect jump, landing safely, the fact still remains that the game ball wound up in the wrong stadium.

The Holy Spirit, the personal presence of the Father and Son with us, is the One who guarantees that at the end of the day our life ends up on the right course.

Go Duke! Thank you, Tar Heels, for the life lesson.

And, may the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you today and always!

Tim