I was very excited about something this past weekend: soccer is back! Well, kind of.
I am an avid soccer fan—either watching games, catching highlights, or reading team news on a daily basis. During normal times, that is. Like every other professional sport, soccer leagues around the world came to a halt mid-March in order to stop the coronavirus spread. Tens of thousands of people huddled together and shouting during mass sporting events are “perfect” environments to spread the infection exponentially.
So I’ve been without soccer for a while. Until now! Since Germany has done a good job of controlling the spread of the virus and testing its population, their major league soccer came back this weekend. With that as the only option, starting now I’m a lifelong die-hard fan of teams in Munich and Dortmund. There were no fans in attendance, of course, but gosh it was good to watch. As a matter of fact, South Korea has done such an excellent job in their response to the virus that their soccer league started back two weeks ago.
As I have followed all the news over the past 2-3 months of the virus’s spread, it’s interesting to see how different places responded to the crisis, and from a spiritual perspective, how people have responded to temptation. Here’s what I mean: since the virus affects people for about two weeks (one week with no symptoms, one week of life-threatening ones), early on during the pandemic I heard an infectious disease doctor say that if everyone in the world stayed home for just two weeks, then the coronavirus spread would be stopped. All done.
Think about that and compare it to what has happened instead. A two week break at home doesn’t seem that bad compared to an economic meltdown with millions losing jobs and tens of thousands dying from the virus. So why didn’t we just do that instead? Temptation.
Humans have always been prone to temptation. Just look at the first story about them in the Bible. We talked about this in a Mid-Week Bible Study video recently, but why are temptations so tempting? Because they don’t seem that bad. Either we know we probably shouldn’t do it, but we think it’ll be okay; or we think it’s actually a good idea, and then it has bad results. (We’ve all known people who made bad decisions that they thought were good ones.) I can see temptation playing out in people’s response to the virus. Instead of doing what we needed to do (have a relaxing two-week stay-cation then go back to normal life), people were tempted: “Oh, it’s probably okay if I go to work, or travel, or attend a conference, catch a game, have a big party, etc.” Sadly, this pandemic is a terrible example of how we don’t do what we need to do. Perhaps the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak (Matt. 26:41).
Other places have fared far better. New Zealand did an amazing job early on doing whatever was necessary, so now they’re opening back up. Other places are living with regret.
Remember what I said about sports matches being a hotspot for infections? One of the last soccer games played in Europe before the shutdown was a huge tournament game in Italy. A relatively small team called Atalanta, from the town of Bergamo, was playing in Milan in one of its biggest games ever. Of the 120,000 residents of Bergamo, 40,000 traveled to see their team play in an historic match. Afterwards, that town became an epicenter of the virus’s spread that would eventually overwhelm all of Italy. The team captain for Atalanta now says it was “terrible” to have played that game. One local doctor called that one match “a biological bomb” that left so many dead, bodies had to be transported in trucks. Sometimes it’s only in regret that we realize the sad effects of temptation.
We’ve all given in to various temptations before. It’s part of being human. But part of following Jesus is working hard to rise above those base temptations: to notice them, recognize them, and with God’s help decide not to give in. So yes, we are in a tough spot right now, but the good news is that there’s always grace—marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, freely bestowed—if we’re willing to repent and accept it.