Easter 5

“Yankees game on opening day last year took 2 hours and 33 minutes,” said baseball fan Molly Knight. “The pitch clock is amazing.”

The greatest thing “since the invention of baseballs,” said Neil Best.

“The game has a cadence that would be familiar to Ted Williams and Sandy Koufax, unhurried but crisp,” said Ben Goldfarb. “I love it.”

The pitch clock is a big help, even if your team is terrible. Geoff Swartz didn’t have to watch the Giants play for three hours. Instead, it took just “2 hours and 30 minutes for them to get shut out.”

Echoing many others, Royce Young said, “It feels like I’m watching a new sport.”

A whole new ballgame.

These fans are talking about a change introduced last year in Major League Baseball: The pitch clock. It was part of an effort to make the game shorter and more exciting.

The pitch clock is “a kind of pacemaker to re-regulate the game’s lagging heartbeat,” writes Mark Leibovich in The Atlantic. Pitchers are now allowed just 15 seconds to begin their motion to deliver the baseball to home plate. Hitters have to be set in the batter’s box by the 8-second mark.

This might seem like a small adjustment, but it’s a radical change. Previously, pitchers could take as long as they wanted between throws, and batters could shuffle around endlessly in the batter’s box. “The goal is to curtail dead time,” says Leibovich, “the endless velcroing and re-velcroing of batting gloves and strolling around the mound.” Less itching, less scratching, less spitting.

And it works! We are now seeing a whole new ballgame, one that is faster and more thrilling.

For centuries, God’s people lived by complex religious regulations: The Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, which contained laws about clean and unclean foods, rules about ritual and moral holiness. The 613 regulations went on and on and on, like a baseball game that lasts for four hours.

But then God’s love was revealed in Jesus. The compassion and mercy of God became visible through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. This inspired John the Evangelist to offer a new rule to the followers of Jesus in the first century: “Let us love one another, because love is from God” (1 John 4:7). This change came from the discovery that love is the very heart of God’s will for our lives.

That’s a whole new ballgame.

John knew that love had been part of the God game for many years. In fact, the commandment, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” was first introduced in the book of Leviticus (19:18). But the game changed when God chose to put a human face — the face of Jesus Christ — on the commandment. “God’s love was revealed among us in this way,” said John: “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:9–10).

So why was this change necessary? Many people would say, “We like the game the way it is!” The problem with the love commandment in Leviticus was that it could easily become a matter of endless philosophical debates, like discussions of baseball’s infield fly rule.

So John changed the rule by attaching it to the sacrifice of Christ. Now, when we look at Jesus on the cross, we see the love of God for us. We discover that even before we could express our love, God showed love by sending Jesus to be an “atoning sacrifice for our sins” (v. 10). Jesus died to show God’s love for us, and to restore the relationship with God that had been broken by our sins.

Now, when we look at Jesus, we see God’s love revealed. We see the loving face of God.

Like the introduction of the pitch clock, this change had a powerful effect. “Beloved, since God loved us so much,” said John, “we also ought to love one another” (v. 11). Suddenly, the love of God in Jesus became more than a good idea. It became a vivid illustration of how we are to love.

Think about this: Not only does Jesus reveal God’s love, but Jesus reveals that God is love. That’s a game changer.

In the novel City of Peace, a pastor named Harley Camden makes a visit to jail to see a Muslim inmate named Muhammad Bayati, accused of murdering his daughter. The two begin to talk about their beliefs, and Muhammad says, “God is merciful and just.”

“God is also love,” adds Harley. “Our Bible says that God is love.”

Muhammad cocks his head slightly. “That is different from our understanding. We have many names for God, but love is not among them.”

“For Christians, love is at the core of who God is,” explains Harley. “God reveals his love by sending Jesus to bring us forgiveness and new life. And the response we are supposed to make is to love one another — a love that should be extended to friends, enemies, blacks, whites, Muslims, Jews, fellow Christians. It is all supposed to come down to love. In fact, the Bible insists that those who say, ‘I love God’ but hate their brothers and sisters, are liars.”

“I would agree with that,” says Muhammad. “Loving God does require that we love the people around us.”

Like baseball, religion is a change-averse game. Many people of faith prefer to play by traditional rules and are nervous about innovations that run counter to their understandings. Religion, like baseball, is not comfortable with change.

Traditional baseball fans were not happy about the pitch clock when it was first proposed. “Baseball is a timeless game,” they would argue. “It’s the only game without a clock, and it will last as long as it needs to last.” A clock was not part of their understanding, even though most of them wanted the game to move more quickly. “They craved more action and offense,” says Leibovich; “more balls hit into play; more doubles, triples, and stolen bases.”

Finally came the innovation — the pitch clock. It was a game changer, and a good one. In the same way, John came along and said, “God is love,” changing the Christian faith forever.

A farmer placed a weathervane inscribed with the words “God is love” on top of his barn. One day a traveler stopped by the farm and watched the weathervane moving with the breeze. Then, with a smirk on his face, he asked, “Do you mean to say that your God is as changeable as the wind?”

The farmer shook his head and replied, “No. What I mean to say is that no matter which way the wind blows, God is love!”

Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change, is the inner experience of love. This is the engine of positive change.

So, do you feel that your Christian game has a lagging heartbeat? Install the “God is love” pitch clock, and let it help you to love your brothers and sisters. This is a change that will draw you closer to God and to the people around you. It will focus you on the action, and keep you excited and engaged. Once you “love one another,” you’ll never want to go back to the way the game was played before.