Three Strikes But NOT Out ...

There are rules in a game.  There are rules in the physics of the universe.  It is how we understand things are supposed to function.  From a baseball perspective, if you break one of the rules you are cheating, and will be penalized up to and including forfeiture of the game entirely.  From a physics perspective, if you break one of the rules … we re-write the rule.  As it turns out, science is less precise than baseball.  Every time a rule of physics is broken, we consider this a break-thru, where our understanding is said to have increased, and we set about trying to figure out how the rule was misunderstood in the first place.  A long time ago and in humanity’s usual arrogance, the common thought was that our sun rotated around us, just as our moon does.  The earth was thought to be the center of our solar system or perhaps the universe itself.  But as our powers of observation increased, and we began to realize just how little we know, our understanding changed to recognize that our earth rotates around the sun not the other way around.  Ergo, knowledge expands.

But then this begins to beg the question; is a rule really a rule?  From a physics perspective, it is only a current state of thinking.  From a physics perspective, we have to admit we don’t know everything, and what today we accept as a rule, tomorrow we have to adjust to a new reality.  So for everything we “know” about physics is actually just a matter of perspective.  Now from a baseball perspective, a rule is a condition or behavior that we all mutually agree is a rule.  The rule is a rule because we say it is.  We can make new rules, change old rules, or alter ones currently on the books.  All it takes is a general consensus from the leagues, the owners, the players, and the fans that this is the right thing to do.  Breaking a rule though, will always be considered cheating, and therefore bears some level of punitive response.  We use umpires to judge whether a rule has been broken when the situation presents a very close call.  Is the pitch a ball or a strike.  Is the runner safe or out on base.  We leave the arbitration of these calls up to the umpires, the referees, the disinterested judges of the sport to determine.  But determine they must do, there is no half ball, half strike pitch.  It is either in or out.  There is no half safe / half out runner on base, it is one or the other.  The call is left to the perspective of the umpire, whose job it is to negotiate close calls.

So what kind of game would it be, if after the third strike, the hitter was NOT out?  It would be … the game of souls.  The message of the gospel was given by God to man to preach to His followers, and to the world.  The message itself was like one of those physics rules, where the more we study it, the more our knowledge is increased, and we learn to adjust our thinking to the reality of God’s love.  Over time, we begin to realize just how little we have scratched the surface of how much we know about God’s love.  The basics remain steadfast, but the depth of it seems nearly un-knowable.  But the commission by God to preach this gospel was not offered as a casual directive we are free to ignore at our leisure.  It was more like one of those baseball rules where we all agreed to follow God, because He loves us, and do what He tells us to do.  We can break that rule, but it usually comes with us hurting ourselves in the process.

So when the Angel of God tells Mary the mother of Jesus, and Salome the sister of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene the devoted follower of Jesus to go tell His disciples that Jesus is arisen and will meet them in Galilee.  Heaven, the Angel, and God kinda expected them to follow that agreed upon rule.  But the ladies struck out afraid to hit the ball.  They were too afraid no one would believe them.  Strike one.  But Jesus loves us way too much to end the game on one strike, so another pitch must swiftly follow.  Peter recalls the immediate actions for the second pitch opportunity to John Mark in his gospel in chapter sixteen, picking up in verse 9 saying … “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.” 

Since the word of the Angel was not enough, Jesus decides to make a personal appearance.  To measure the depth of His love, other gospel accounts include the words of Jesus to Mary not to touch Him yet, because He had not yet ascended to His Father to see if His sacrifice was enough to purchase our redemption.  Imagine this.  The most important work in the history of the universe, where Jesus must be so entirely eager to know if it has worked.  He delays knowing.  He delays in order to reach out personally to Mary Magdalene.  This honor does not go to Peter, or John, or any of the other disciples.  It goes to the woman with the broken heart.  It goes to end her weeping, and begin her praising.  It goes ahead of His own needs, as it has always been.  This first preacher of the gospel, this first missionary to the church itself, is a woman who used to be a prostitute.  It is a woman who had in her life 7 demons possessed inside of her.  A woman we would all shun for her past.  A woman many of us could never really accept, forgive and embrace as our own.  Too afraid of our own unbridled passions to recognize the changes Jesus has brought about in her life.

We the upstanding Christians of the modern age, would rather debate the scriptural integrity of woman in ministry on par with men.  And yet God slows the entire work of redemption, to commission a woman with a horrific past, to be His first emissary to the church and the world.  Peter does not record for us the conversation between Mary and Jesus but he does record what comes next.  Mark continues in verse 10 saying … “And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. [verse 11] And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.”  Foul ball.  This time the message was not encumbered by fear of unbelief, but it was met by it.  The people who should have known the most, remembered the most, failed the most.  The church failed.  The whole church, short the three women who knew, and among them Mary who had seen.  The women were the church at this point, as the men … believed not.

The gospel was still confined to the three women who first heard it.  It had not spread.  Twice the commission was given, the first time not at all, the second with no acceptance.  In the spiritual game of baseball, there must be one last attempt made.  Mark continues in verse 12 saying … “After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country.”  Jesus ascends to His Father, and finally realizes His sacrifice was enough to cover our sins, enough to redeem us from them, and enough to change in us the desire for them.  But the gospel was still not going anywhere on earth.  So for a third pitch, He decides to spend some quality time with 2 disciples who were journeying from the upper room to Emmaus.  Jesus picks 2 disciples to reveal scripture and himself to.  In Jewish tradition 2 witnesses were all that was needed to assert the truth of a thing.  The angel picked three but only Mary Magdalene had spoken up with no success.  Now Jesus was teaching personally 2 disciples, both men in case there was too much cultural bias to believe a woman with a sordid past.  So for this third pitch, there must have been a home run right?  Mark continues in verse 13 saying … “And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them.”

The church failed again.  This time 12 men, down to 11 with the loss of Judas, were hearing 2 of their own preach the gospel of love and life.  And the nine men left refused to believe.  Those nine guys knew these two guys.  They spent the better part of the last three years with them.  And nothing.  Strike Three.  After three full chances to accept this pitch this church should have just struck out right?  It is after all three strikes by people who of all the ones on planet earth should have known better.  You would understand if you told some random Roman guy walking down the street that Jesus, a recent torture and crucifixion victim was now risen, and the Roman guy was little skeptical.  That you would expect.  But to tell the church of Jesus, to tell the very disciples of Jesus, the ones who later refer to themselves as the Apostles of Jesus … and nothing.  Just an invisible satanic umpire echoing beyond what they can hear … strike three.

Again the church failed.  The men failed.  They refused to believe a woman.  They refused to believe two of their own.  This could have easily been the end of the game.  In baseball it is.  But in the game of souls, the true Umpire is not looking to count how often we fail.  He is looking to help us stop failing.  The mission is not to end the game and watch us rail in the pain we cause ourselves.  It is to help us play differently.  To help us think differently.  To change who we are from the inside out.  Sometimes that takes more than just three chances to get it right.  The ones who get it in 3, are blessed.  But those of us laggards who just keep piling failure on top of failure, find ourselves contending with a God who just keeps pitching His love to us until we finally understand.  To lose at this game you have to leave the stadium, go off the grid, and tell God “no” every time He keeps on trying to lure you back on the field.  The style of Jesus is not to count strikes, but to create home runs.

So Jesus does what He must do to fix His church.  He makes a personal appearance.  Mark concludes this section in verse 14 saying … “Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.”  Jesus had to call a little time out with His own disciples.  Peter says He “upbraided” them for their lack of vision, their lack of belief.  Jesus gives the fourth pitch Himself, to make sure it goes according to plan.  When humans seem incapable of believing, Jesus can make them believe.  When humans lack the vision to see the divine, Jesus alone can open their eyes.  This is the whole point.  It is not our job to guard His church, it is His job to do that.  Only He can.  The church failed three times.  It took Jesus to fix it.  It takes Jesus to fix you. 

The pattern of sin and unbelief in your own life are like one of those physics rules we don’t fully understand.  They are lethal to us, but we don’t see it.  They are a spiral downwards causing pain to ourselves and everyone we love, and everyone who loves us, but we refuse to acknowledge it.  In truth, we don’t really want to understand our sins, and Satan is all too happy to keep it that way.  But Jesus knows the truth, and Jesus is The Truth.  We are not bound by the physics rules of sin.  Jesus breaks those things we could not break ourselves.  Our knowledge is increased in that Jesus expands that knowledge.  When we start wanting other things besides our sins, we begin to realize how much better our life is without those sins we were once chained to.  But that vision may seem like a mystery now.  It is only clear, after how Jesus transforms our hearts, and how we love.

There are no three strike rules in place with Jesus, but there are home runs He wants to hit on our behalf.  While Satan screams for the justice we deserve, our God quietly fixes the flaws in us, accepts our punishment for us, forgives us, and brings us home to him no matter how sordid our past has been, or how many demons he has to relocate to do so.  The only outcome to any spiritual game, the only physics rule that cannot be broken, is that the love of God is greater still and will find a way to bring you home.