Out Our Way: Super Sunday!

John Bruington

“Bear one another’s burdens and thus you will fulfill the law of Christ” — Galatians 6:2

Out our way, most folks were settled in with chips and dip, pizza, snack trays and various forms of liquid refreshment. Not quite as big as Christmas, some merchants really rake it in for America’s biggest secular celebration — the Super Bowl!

This year I was especially interested, not because I am a Pats or Hawks fan, but I actually had money on the game. My letter carrier and I got talking about the game — and is she glad they don’t send out Super Bowl mail order catalogues like they do at Christmas! Anyway, we decided to put up a whole quarter on the game. That’s me, Brother John, big-time gambler!

However, I had another reason to enjoy the game and that is that I am finally coming out of my “foxhole” after all the trials and tribulations of this past year. I made the effort and invited some friends to come over. Only one was able to make it, but she brought her dog, whom I happen to love deeply. Scout was excited, too, because Jezzie is really a mellow old “Granma” in many ways, but the old girl still loves to “wrassle” and play. After the preliminary sniffing and growling rituals, they began to bark and jump and “attack” each other — tails wagging and big grins on both their muzzles. 

Amazingly, they eventually settled down as the game got going and just lay there while the rest of us booed, hissed or cheered depending on who had the ball and what they did with it. We also enjoyed the Super Bowl parade of commercials (most of them anyway) and marveled at the technology and talent that went into the half-time show.

But while the sets were being taken down and the announcers where rehashing the game thus far — we began to talk and share. Because we are friends, we were able to share the pain and sorrows of this year we had both endured — and we found comfort in knowing someone really understood what we had been facing, and cared. 

There is something about walking with a brother or a sister who has walked the same path that encourages the heart and soul.

Just like the PTSD group we started for combat veterans who had been in the “stuff” — different word but some of the letters are the same — nobody can really walk beside you and understand who hasn’t been in it themselves. To know you are not alone, that someone really knows what you are feeling because they have felt it too, there is something healing about that.

When people ask why God would come amongst us in human form, that’s what I tell them. Christ has been there before us so that He can now walk beside us. “He, who being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made Himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant and being made in human likeness” Philippians 2:6-7.

He bears our burdens because He has borne His own before us. He gets it! He’s been in the “stuff.” As it happened, my friend and I missed the rest of the game because we were busy “bearing one another’s burdens.”    I am not sorry I missed the football game because my friend helped lift me up and made by burden easier. I hope my friend can say the same of me.   

     I met with Christ twice on Sunday — once at communion in Church, and later over pizza at the Super Bowl.

(John Bruington is the pastor at 1st Presbyterian Church of Havre. He can be reached at [email protected])