The Underdog

Go Giants! I love cheering for underdogs and watching the mighty fall (unless the mighty are a Minnesota team)! And I’ve found that many people are with me on that too. One sports survey I came across recently said that over 78% of the nation wanted the Patriots to lose Superbowl XLII. Which in some ways is weird, because they were pursuing a perfect season and why wouldn’t people want to witness the culmination of “history” in the making? Part of it was likely due to issues surrounding a spying/cheating scandal that seemed to catch up with Bill Belichick (many people have been calling the Pats “evil” for several weeks now), but that aside, what is it in a person that makes him want to witness an upset in sports?

I wonder if part of it has to do with the “David and Goliath syndrome” that we all share in to some degree. In other words, just as David—a peasant shepherd—slew a giant, and just as Jesus Christ bound the strongman on the cross (though he wasn’t an underdog per se, yet he did become weak in order to overcome the seemingly impossible task of saving a rebellious people, enslaved to sin, under the wrath of God), so we see this “gospel” typified in the day-to-day of sporting events and the unlikely “victories” of life.

In any case, the joy we get when watching the weak defeat the strong is multiplied a hundred-fold in a true understanding of what Jesus did through his suffering, death, and resurrection. For then those of us in Christ can say to our enemy: “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55)

Bring on the upset-ridden March Madness!

Chris