Hockey Jesus: Taking our penalty

Blue line.

Left wing.

Center.

Neutral zone. (Not the border between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingons.) My apologies, my Trekkies background came out.

Zamboni machine

Thus, this past fall and spring my wife and I had to learn new terms as we began to watch the St Louis Blues.

We are mostly baseball fans.

The KC Royals to be specific.

But we also watch and support the team in St. Louis.

The Blues also have the same basic team colors as the KC Royals.

Blue, gold and white.

I must admit, the only time we really watched hockey in the past was when the USA team played in the Olympics.

There also is a learning curve as you begin to understand the rules of the game.

Hockey is also very fast paced. Skaters come on and off the ice every few seconds. Most players skate for less than a minute.

The average shift for a hockey player is 47 seconds on the ice.

The goalie is the only one that remains on the ice for the whole game.

This past winter, my wife and I went to a hockey game.

It was between the St. Louis Blues and the Calgary Flames. The Blue’s goalie Jordan Bennington got a penalty for “delay of game” for fighting.

Go figure.

A penalty in hockey means your team plays short-handed while you sit in the penalty box. Yet, during this penalty, the Blues’ goalie was still in the net.

Do you know why?

Because another player on his team was allowed to take the penalty for him.

That other player was in the penalty box, suffering the consequences of what the goalie did, as if he was the one guilty of breaking the rules.

That’s a picture of Jesus Christ.

We broke the rules, we are the sinners, we have offended God’s majesty, we have strayed from the Way, yet it is Jesus Christ who paid the penalty. The Apostle Peter reminds us “Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24

The Apostle to the gentiles Paul proclaims, “For the wages (penalty) of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23

Again, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

Later, the young Apostle John writes to the early church, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” 1 John 2:2

The word propitiation appears several times in the New Testament. The word carries the basic idea of appeasement or satisfaction, specifically toward God.

Propitiation is a two-part act that involves appeasing the anger of an offended person and being reconciled to them.

In this case, God.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6

The only way for God’s anger against sinful humankind had to be appeased and for us to be reconciled to God is through Jesus Christ.

The result?

Through Jesus Christ and His cross we have a way to God and heaven and eternal life.

Through Jesus Christ we are saved!

Jordan Bennington, “I Am the Way and the Truth and the Life.”

Rev. Frank Chlastak began work as senior minister of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Poplar Bluff in 2015. He is a graduate of Northeast Louisiana University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and has served congregations of the Christian Church in Louisiana, Arkansas, Virginia, Oklahoma and Missouri.