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Midweek Message
This past Friday, Tracy and I were in Nashville visiting our son Noah, and while we were there, we watched the Vanderbilt men’s tennis team take on the #3 team in the US, the University of Texas. It was exciting to see such hard-hitting, fast-moving play. The camaraderie among the teammates and the encouragement of the coaches brought to mind memories of my years of playing on the tennis team in both high school and college.
Last August, the Atlantic magazine published an article that claimed tennis is the healthiest sport, especially in terms of longevity. It’s a sport you can play all your life long. In fact, I’ve gotten my old rackets out again and am playing in one of the city’s men’s leagues.
But tennis is not only good for your physical health; it can also be good for your spiritual health as well. Just think of the words we use when we play tennis.
Love. There’s an old saying: “In tennis, love means nothing.” Love is where every game starts, with the scores at zero, or love. Love is the beginning point of the game. It all starts with love. That’s true in our faith as well, isn’t it? “God so loved…” (John 3:16).
Serve. The game gets going when someone serves the ball to the other player. Nothing happens until someone serves. This is also true in our faith. “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45). Who knew Jesus played tennis?
Fault. This happens when a serve misses the target box either going wide or deep. This is like sin. The Greek word for sin in the New Testament is hamartia, which comes from the sport of archery and means “missing the mark.” We miss the mark in many ways in our lives, and much of the time it is our own fault. But the good news is that we get another chance.
Second serve. If we miss our first chance to serve, we are given a second chance to serve the ball into the box. This is grace. Thank God we serve a God of second chances!
Advantage. When the score in a game arrives at deuce, which is essentially three points each, whoever wins the next point but then needs to win one more point to win the game, has the “advantage.” Most of the tennis players I’ve ever met have a lot of advantages in life. But one of the great questions in life is what are we going to do with the advantages, the opportunities, the privileges we have been given? I’m reminded of something Jesus said: “From whom much has been given, much will be required” (Luke 12:48). And what is required of us is that we use the advantages we have been given in this life to love and to serve others, especially those who are disadvantaged in some way.
I imagine that if we live our lives in light of these terms from both tennis and Jesus, we’ll be “set.”
