During my sophomore year of high school, nothing seemed more important than earning a coveted football letterman jacket.
I had not played football my ninth-grade year. I had not been lifting weights. I was not “up to snuff,” so to speak. But I had a coach who was committed to staying after practice to work with me on strength training, plyometrics, skills development and everything else. The hard work paid off. Halfway through the season, I earned a starting spot and managed to log enough playing time on the field by the season’s end to earn my own jacket.
There was only one problem. Letterman jackets are meant for the fall and winter. Ours arrived in July. I didn’t care.
I was so proud to have the jacket that I wore it all day when it arrived. I looked completely ridiculous wearing that heavy jacket in July. Needless to say, I was also more than a little uncomfortable wearing the jacket on a summer’s day that measured more than 100 with the heat index.
Just like nature, the church year has seasons, each with its appropriate emphasis. In Advent, we look with anticipation to the coming of Christ to redeem a sinful world. In Lent, we focus on the love and righteousness of God that ordained the Christ who came to go to the cross for our sins. Yet the longest season of the church year is Pentecost, the celebration of the harvest, the season of mission.
The irony of the church is that we often put an appropriate emphasis on the theological truths of the seasons leading up to Easter (Resurrection Sunday) only to miss the theological truths of the longest season on the other side. The risen Christ who came to save us calls us to go to a world that needs saving. We must not fail to put on the appropriate clothes for the season entrusted to us (read Colossians 3:1-17). We must not fail to show the world—in word and in deed—what God has shown us in Jesus. We must not fail in our God-given commission to share the Gospel with all nations, beginning right here in Fort Payne.
May we lived challenged to dress for this season of mission so that a lost world looking on does not see Christ’s Church wearing a letterman jacket in July.
Dr. Nathan W. VanHorn is pastor of First Baptist Church of Fort Payne.