Today’s reading is Psalm 49.
As I write this we are in Cooperstown, NY where the baseball Hall of Fame is for a 12U baseball tournament for our oldest son Deklin’s Renegades team. There are 104 teams and over 1200 kids here from across the country. Cooperstown Dreams Park here strives to hold on to many of the original traditions of baseball like knicker pants, plain scarlet and blue uniform, big green stadium walls with red, white, and blue bunting, no walkup music…all the way to rules that don’t allow the boys to wear their hat backwards or slides or crocs with their uniform or face a suspension.
I can only imagine how giddy I will be tomorrow when we go the Baseball Hall of Fame with our families. The stories and traditions passed down through generations about the legends of baseball are thick. I remember looking at my Dad’s baseball cards and figurines from the 1950s and 1960s and him telling me about the Say Hey Kid Willie Mayes’ iconic over the head catch in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series… or telling me of Chicago Cub Ernie Banks’ famous saying, “Let’s play two!” Also, family stories like his Dad (my Grandpa) telling of Babe Ruth visiting him in the St. Louis Children’s hospital when he was sick as a child and greeting him by saying, “Hey Kid.” Both of my grandpas were die hard Cubs fans, and I’m blessed to remember sitting on both their laps singing along with Harry Carey to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” while the Cubs played on WGN. The first call I made when the Cubs won their first World Series in 108 years was to my now passed 92 year old grandmother who we took to Wrigley to sit on the rooftops to fulfill her long desire for her 90th birthday present.
Reading Psalm 49 is humbling though as we head there and see all those honored and enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“For when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him. For though, while he lives, he counts himself blessed —and though you get praise when you do well for yourself— his soul will go to the generation of his fathers, who will never again see light. Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.”
Psalm 49:17-20
What must man have understanding of? We are told a little earlier in the chapter.
“Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit.”
Psalm 49:7-9
We all will pass away. Earthly accomplishments, Hall of Fame inductions, and riches in the end do not matter. We cannot save our own souls from our own sin and no other man, except for the perfect and sinless Son of God Jesus, can do it either.
As we go to the Hall of Fame to read and learn about baseball legends, and I get to share and pass down stories to my children which I’m thankful for…what I’m most grateful for is that my grandparents taught my parents who taught my brother and myself who have taught our children who will hopefully teach their children about the only name that really matters in the end…the only name that saves…Jesus.
There is only one Hall of Fame we should all strive to be in….the one where we can spend eternity in perfect peace with our Creator…..Heaven.
“But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. Selah”
Psalm 49:15
And isn’t God’s grace amazing? The only Hall of Fame that matters…where we will spend eternity…God, not us, made it possible for us to get into. Romans 5:8 says, “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”
He also made it the easiest to get into. All we have to do to be inducted and have our name written into what the book of Revelation calls the Book of Life is to believe and give our life to Jesus as He told us himself.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
John 3:16
