Jesus and Basketball

I had never thought of Jesus as a basketball player, but Mark Eaton, center for the Utah Jazz, did. He said: “I think Jesus would have been a great basketball player. He would have been one of the most tenacious guys out there. I think he’d really get in your face – nothing dirty, but he’d play to win” (USA Today, March 17, 1992).

I must confess, I have difficulty seeing the Lord in a basket­ball uniform, but I don’t believe Jesus would be opposed to the game. (He might, however, think that some of the salaries border on the vulgar.)

I doubt the Lord’s idea of a great basketball player and ours would be the same. We judge a man’s ability on the court by the way he jumps, passes and shoots. If he’s aggressive and physical all the better. He must be intense. Once in a while he may even explode and punch someone. Or, he may intentionally step on an opponent while he’s down. We really don’t care what kind of person he is as long as he puts points on the board.

Jesus, on the other hand, is less impressed with how many points a player scores. He doesn’t measure a man’s height, but his heart (1 Samuel 16:7). The winning team, in His eyes, would not necessarily be the one with the highest score at the buzzer. The real winners would be those who played fairly, showed good sportsmanship, and conducted themselves in a way befitting God’s people.

The point is, folks, the real winners are not always those who score the most points, command the highest salaries, or get the most press. A man can do all those things and still fail miserably at life.

I don’t know what kind of basketball player Jesus would have been, but I know what kind of man he was. We can only be successful when we imitate Him. That’s true on the basketball court, in the classroom, at home, and on the job. Our goal is to be like Him, to attain unto the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).

Will you join with us as we seek to follow His lead?

— Roger