Dropkick Me, Jesus

All right sports fans, Super Bowl Sunday is just around the corner. We know this is the main event, but what main event within the event has your attention? Is it Mahomes and a potential fourth ring? Are you hoping for the Eagles to turn the tide? Do you have no idea about any of this and just want to watch for Swift or the commercials?

I’d like to suggest that the most important part of this weekend will barely be talked about. I’m speaking of course about the football, but not its inflation. This isn’t some tongue-in-cheek point about how you need it to play. In fact, none of that occurred to me until a friend sent me an old country song called “Dropkick Me, Jesus.”

In this catchy country tune, the singer is praying that Jesus sends him through to life eternal in an admittedly absurd metaphor. Imagining life as a football game, he doesn’t ask to be the star quarterback who throws the winning touchdown. He’s not an immense linebacker exerting his will on offensive linemen. He’s not even the kicker scoring the points. He is the football, and he needs to be acted upon for victory.

Check out the lyrics for yourself and see the Nazareth principle at play:

Dropkick me, Jesus, through the goalposts of life
End over end, neither left, nor the right
Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights
Dropkick me, Jesus, through the goalposts of life

Make me, oh, make me, Lord, more than I am
Make a piece in your master game plan
Free from the earthly temptation below
I’ve got the will, Lord, if you’ve got the toe

This is a strange idea to say the least. How could it be good news to be acted upon? When I first heard the title, I even thought it referred to professional wrestling and figured Jesus was giving me a Stone Cold Stunner. And maybe he has. Further reflection on my life had me thinking about times I’ve felt kicked around. In those low points I tend to think God has abandoned me to the wolves. I question my purpose in life. I start looking for the exits, thinking I’ll be recognized and appreciated by someone else. In other words, I want to be something more. But what if feeling kicked around isn’t evidence of God’s absence?

The singer pleads to be made into more than he is. In the world’s reckoning, this would mean vying for attention and receiving the accolades. How on earth is it an improvement to be the football? Ha! Well, the football has clarity on its purpose. It has one job. It exists for the sake of others. It brings joy to the players. It is seemingly less, yet infinitely more.

Now is as good a time as any for you to know that you are the football. You are headed for those “righteous uprights” on account of Christ. You were created with one thing in mind. God made you for salvation. Before the foundations of the world, before your own creation, God had you in mind to be saved and to serve as an instrument of his love and care to others. We tend to spend much of our lives trying to figure out our purpose. Sometimes it feels clear, but more often we struggle. We need God to remind us of the truth every day. In God’s master plan, you have been made more than the world could ever see. It’s a counterintuitive and freeing truth.

St. Paul puts it this way in Romans 6:

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. (6:12–14)

Dead to sin and the striving to make ourselves more. Brought from death to life by the mighty toe of Jesus! An instrument of righteousness and nothing less. This is you and me, end over end. Jesus loves you enough to dropkick you! Enjoy your forgiveness, your new life, and the game that ends in unexpected victory.