Photo by: Ronald Heft

The news for those following the March Madness NCAA Basketball tournament is that 10 or 15 years from now some will still be talking about Friday, March 16, 2012 as a day in which the “15s” pulled off some of the biggest upsets in NCAA tournament history.

Missouri was crushed by 15^th ranked Norfolk State; Lehigh, another 15^th ranked team, beat Duke; and my own home state team of Michigan lost to 13^th ranked Ohio (not Ohio State).

For many it will also be a day of broken brackets. Few of those competing with one another in predicting the tournament champions would have foreseen these second day outcomes in their projected brackets of winners and losers.

Since I enjoy sports but don’t know enough to be considered a fan, I probably should be leaving this one to Bill Crowder our Sports Spectrum chaplain. But am intrigued by how often  sports writers and commentators call on the story of David and Goliath to explain such upsets.

Seems to me that if we can take the next step of moving from the diversion of sport to the real issue of unexpected outcomes we might end up the story of David and Goliath to the unlikely outcomes of Jesus and those who follow him.

We get a hint of a new way of thinking when a former enemy of Christ writes in praise of One “who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Eph 3:20).

Am guessing you’d agree that living in anticipation of unexpectedly good outcomes doesn’t come naturally. If we tried to fill out a “brackets life map” in an attempt to predict the surprises God has for us, we probably wouldn’t get very far.  From what Paul writes, our Lord’s idea of good upsets means that he loves us far more than we can naturally project from our present circumstances or emotions (Eph 3:14-21).

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