Who Runs Toward and Injury?

During Louisville's Elite Eight win over Duke, on their way to a National Championship, Kevin Ware experienced what is probably the most gruesome injury ever broadcast on live television. If you were watching, you'll know what I'm talking about, and if you weren't...there's really no way to describe it. It will suffice to say that broken bone was visible through skin, and men young and old were immediately moved to tears at the sight. Everyone, coaches, players, and referees, instinctively moved away from Ware, horrified by his injury. Only one person, Ware's Louisville teammate Luke Hancock, went the other way. Here's a description of what happened next, from Grantland's Shane Ryan:

But after turning his head with everyone else at the sight of the snapped bone, Luke Hancock was the one who came to Ware's side and gripped his hand. He said a prayer, guided him through the initial trauma, and stayed with him on the floor while the medical staff worked. It was because of Hancock, at least in part, that Ware overcame his initial horror and encouraged his teammates to keep playing, to win the game. 

In the days leading up to Louisville's Final Four game against Wichita State, the question Hancock faced over and over was why he'd done it. Why did he have the presence of mind to react the way he did? 

When he answered the question Friday in the Georgia Dome's media center, he probably could have recited a response from memory. He'd been the centerpiece of hundreds of stories for that one act, and was destined to be featured in a hundred more. Which is why it surprised me that his answer, simple as it was, still moved me. 

"You know, I don't really know why I went out there," he said. "But, you know, I just didn't want him to be alone out there. I don't know."

Hancock, by some miracle (note that he says, even after having days to think about it, that he doesn't know why he went to Ware's side), was moved to go toward the grisly injury, rather than away from it. Though Luke Hancock is in no way Jesus Christ, this direction of movement is indeed Christlike.

Here's St. Paul, theologizing Luke Hancock:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:6-8). 

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21).

When the uninjured (righteous) goes toward the injured (unrighteous), miracles happen.  When Christ comes toward us, even as we lie there, broken in sin, that miracle is our salvation.

Grace From the Very Top

1993 is, I'm sure, notable for many things.  But for some, it was most notable as the year of the second straight "Fab Five" appearance in the NCAA National Championship game.  The year before, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, Ray Jackson, and Chris Webber had become famous for being an all-freshman starting five at the University of Michigan, introducing what has been referred to as "a hip-hop element" into the game, and getting all the way to the championship game before losing to Duke. The next year, as sophomores, the Fab Five was even better. Again, they went all the way to the championship, this time against North Carolina.

And then, the timeout happened.

Very late in a close game, Chris Webber (the team's best player and the man who would be drafted first overall in the upcoming NBA draft) called a timeout when his team didn't have one. Such a mistake results in a technical foul, giving the opposing team two free throws and the ball. Michigan couldn't recover, and lost. Webber was ruthlessly mocked, both at the time and for years to come. A perennial All-Star, "Chris Webber timeout" is still the first Google suggestion when you type in his name.

A few days after that fateful game, though, Chris Webber got a letter (you can even see the handwritten version HERE):

I have been thinking of you a lot since I sat glued to the TV during the championship game. I know that there may be nothing I or anyone else can say to ease the pain and disappointment of what happened. Still, for whatever it's worth, you, and your team, were terrific. And part of playing for high stakes under great pressure is the constant risk of mental error. I know. I have lost two political races and made countless mistakes over the last twenty years. What matters is the intensity, integrity, and courage you bring to the effort. That is certainly what you have done. You can always regret what occurred but don't let it get you down or take away the satisfaction of what you have accomplished. You have a great future. Hang in there. 

Sincerely, Bill Clinton

Chris Webber did have a great future, and though I suspect he's never totally gotten over that moment in 1993, this letter must have been, and likely continues to be, an incredible balm for the wound. Such is the inevitable operation of grace in the face of the world's judgment.

Tiger Woods: Theologian of Glory

Tiger Woods' new ad campaign (or, more accurately, Nike's new ad campaign featuring Tiger Woods) is making the rounds. Featuring Woods staring down a put, the tagline is "Winning Takes Care of Everything," a quote attributed to "Tiger Woods, World #1." There has been much debate about the taste level of this ad, seeing as how Tiger Woods remains a divorcee with less than full custody of his children. Has "everything" really been taken care of? Is this an appropriate message to be sending to children?

The great Gerhard Forde (via the greater Martin Luther) talked about this idea, that victory heals all wounds, in his seminal On Being a Theologian of the Cross. Here's a taste:

Indeed, so seductive has the exiled soul myth been throughout history that the biblical story itself has been taken into captivity by it. The biblical story of the fall has tended to become a variation on the theme of the exiled soul. The unbiblical notion of a fall is already a clue to that. Adam originally pure in soul, either by nature or by the added gift of grace was tempted by baser lusts and "fell," losing grace and drawing all his progeny with him into a "mass of perdition." Reparation must be made, grace restored, and purging carried out so that return to glory is possible. The cross, of course, can be quite neatly assimilated into the story as the reparation that makes the return possible. And there we have a tightly woven theology of glory! (p. 6)

Tiger Woods was nothing if not an "exiled soul" (Forde, it should be noted, takes this chilling term from the philosopher Paul Ricoeur). Reparation needed to be made, and the Nike ad claims that "winning" was the route. Forde's claim is that Christianity all too often uses this same "exiled soul" story (he calls it "the glory story") and simply puts the cross in place of victories on the golf course. Still, though, it is "success," in one form or another, that is required for us to regain our former stature.

Woods' ad posits a thing that you can do to regain your purity: win. Christianity, as it is often practiced, posits something, too: word hard, pray hard, be righteous, and you can regain that close relationship with God that your sinful life cost you. On the golf course, a theology of glory can work in the short term: win, and the accolades will come back. The money will come back. The sponsors will come back. Even the beautiful women will come back. But where your "exiled soul" is concerned? It is only the victory (ironically, through death) of another, freely given to you, that can offer new life.

Tiger Woods' life isn't new...it's merely buffed clean until new cracks appear (or until he starts losing again). We require something more permanent, something that will give us peace. Admonition ("Go win!") won't do it. Only a gift will do. "Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:25)