A Different Kind of Selection Show

Many of you know that I am a big sports fan.  I love college basketball and I am especially passionate about my North Carolina Tarheels.  This past weekend, the Texas A&M Aggies thoroughly thumped my Heels and knocked them out of the tournament.  I was hoping that they might repeat as champions, but it was not to be.  This got me to thinking…

The college basketball season is a four-month long series of games that teams play in order to build up their resume. Their hope is that by the end of the regular season in March, they will have won enough games and beaten enough quality opponents, so that the NCAA Tournament selection committee will invite them to be in the field of 68 teams that participate in the tournament.  Every year there are a number of teams who are “on the bubble.”  That means that the team’s resume is not too strong either because it’s record is not so good, or they haven’t beaten many quality opponents, or they lost to some bad teams.  Bubble teams are in danger of not being selected by the committee and can find themselves on the outside looking in.  You don’t want to be a “bubble team” and leave your fate to the judgment of a fickle and fallible committee.  You want to be sure to win your way into the tournament.

The teams that do get into the tournament are “seeded” according to the strength of the season they had.  The best teams are seeded number 1.  The weakest teams in the field are seeded 16.   It’s a single elimination format so once you lose, you are out.  You have to win 6 games in a row to win the tournament and only one team will do it.  One by one, teams are eliminated until the 63^rd and final game of the tournament, when only one team is left standing.  That team has won 6 games in a row against the toughest competition possible and is handed the trophy.  It’s a completely idolatrous and works based religion.  You have to work to get in and you have to work to stay in, and in the end, only one has done enough work to claim the idol.  Every year I watch the Tournament selection show with great interest and anticipation, to see where my Heels are seeded and who they will have to play. 

By comparison, Christianity has no “selection show.”  To be “selected” into Christianity requires no work. We don’t “earn” our way in. (Eph. 2:8-9) We don’t have to “beat anyone” to get in, or have a “better resume” than anyone to get into the field.  In fact, we don’t worry about our resume at all.  We rely on Jesus’ resume to get in. Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead. All we need to do is to believe that and we are “in the field.” There are no people who are “on the bubble.”  We either believe and are in the field or we don’t believe and we do not make the field.  The field is not limited to 68.  All are invited (John 3:16), so we don’t have to worry about a fickle and fallible committee.  We have a perfect, holy and just judge who knows our hearts and gladly allows us into heaven on the basis of Jesus’ resume, not ours.

Once we get “in the field”, we don’t have to beat anyone to stay in.  Christ died once to secure our salvation for all eternity (John 10:30).  We cannot lose our salvation so we don’t have to worry about getting knocked out of the field by some top-seeded team like the Calcutta Mother Teresas.  Once in, we don’t chase a gleaming gold trophy that says we are worthy.  We are worthy when we believe.  We get a gleaming gold crown when we enter heaven (Rev. 2:10; James 1:12).  But we don’t seek the crown. Rather, we cast our crowns back to our Savior who earned it for us in the first place (Rev. 4:10). 

Christianity is a grace based religion that seeks only relationship with Christ as its goal.  I will always love the NCAA tournament, but I am less interested once my Heels are knocked out.  I thank God for a salvation so great that it cannot be earned and cannot be lost, even if I have a bad day like my Heels did last weekend.