The Ultimate Closer

Last week, the Grand Island high school baseball team captured its first Class A state baseball championship by defeating Millard West 7-6. Mike Patterson wrote about the game in the Omaha World-Herald. He starts the article as follows,
"Entering the final inning of the Class A state championship game, Grand Island coach Rick Kissack wasn't sure whether to send ace Kash Kalkowski back to the mound. But that's when he heard his star pitcher say the magic words. "He said, 'Coach, I'm going to win it for you,'" Kissack said. "That was all I needed to hear." Coach Kissack put Kash in to close the final inning and the victory was sealed.

This reminds me of the victory Jesus won for us by voluntarily laying down his life for His team as a substitutionary atonement for our sins. From the very beginning, God's plan was to send His Son, in the form of man, to die on a cross for our sins and be resurrected from the dead. Even as early as Genesis 3:15 we see the plan as God says to Satan, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers, he will crush your head, and you will bruise his heel." Peter preaches in Acts 2:23-24, "this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and forekowledge of God, crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it."

Leading up to His crucifixion, Jesus prayed to His Father in the garden of Gethsemane saying, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will" (Matt. 26:39b) He submitted Himself to the Father's will and later on in the same chapter after Jesus had been seized by the chief priests and elders, he said this, "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?" (Matt. 26:53-54)

Christ was on a specific mission to achieve a specific victory, the redemption of His people. 1 Corinthians 5:14-15 tells us, "For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised." He came as a "propiation" for our sins, satisfying diving wrath that we deserved(Romans 3:25).

Far from a closer in a state championship baseball game, Jesus Christ was the ultimate closer. He achieved for His team a victory that will last for eternity; the redemption and salvation of our souls!

Josh Reynolds
Central-Northeast Nebraska FCA