Everyone noticed the flag-planters and the brawlers.
Everyone noticed the helplessly dumbstruck coaches and the frantic officers with their pepper spray.
Did anyone notice the Christians?
It's hard to imagine a more perfect picture of who Christians are and should be in this tortured generation. It's exactly who God calls us to be. In a world of hatred, amid wars and rumors of wars, with kingdoms placing their flags in the heart of foreign lands, with emperors and princes left paralyzed by the chaos that surrounds them, with armies exerting themselves, bystanders victimized, and cameras enthusiastically focused in on the salacious and sensational … there in the midst of it all gathers a bizarre group of people.
This group of people has every earthly reason to be divided and discordant, but instead kneels together, unites in peace, surrenders their passions, lusts, urges, and appetites to the ways and will of a God who calls them to sacrificially love one another.
What happened in that postgame brawl, on that metaphorical battlefield, was a microcosm of the eternal truth spoken nearly three millennia ago:
'Nations rage, kingdoms crumble; but when He lifts His voice, the earth melts.' - Psalm 46:6
Don't miss in those divine words what the world ignores, and believers so often forget. Praying and submitting to the Lordship and Kingship of Christ isn't disengagement or surrender. It isn't retreating or running from battle. It's engaging, advancing, and confronting evil in the most powerful way possible - by rousing and moving the invisible hand of Almighty God in defense of His perfect preferences and priorities.
Whether it's raging college competitors, quarreling families, or warring nations, Christians are uniquely positioned to understand the deeper root of what causes all the unrest. James, the earthly brother of Jesus, revealed it to us:
'What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.' - James 4:1-2
The solution to it all is humble submission to God - His rule, His authority, His righteous power.
The world names and honors the leadership of those who rise and perform. God names and honors the leadership of those who kneel and pray.
So let me join the latter and commend Michigan's Donovan Edwards, Ohio State's Gee Scott, Jr., Glorien Gough, and one other (perhaps OSU's TreVeyon Henderson), for their powerful example of humility, faith, and sword-sheathing unity in Christ our Lord.
