Our Only Hope

Earlier this month, the Buffalo Bills faced off against the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday Night Football. Many of you may have seen or heard what happened during that fateful game. After making a seemingly routine tackle, Bills safety Damar Hamlin stood up, wobbled, and collapsed backwards onto the ground in a frightening heap. When medical personnel got to him, he did not have a pulse. This kicked off a frantic scene which involved CPR, an ambulance driving directly onto the field, and both sets of teams kneeling, crying, and finally cancelling the remainder of the game.

In the aftermath, as the nation was transfixed on Damar’s health & recovery, something caught my attention. Professional athletes get injured fairly frequently. Usually, you’ll see people provide their “support” by saying something like “sending good vibes your way,” or “thinking of you.” But this situation with Damar Hamlin was different. Immediately, the prevailing notion, and even the official response from the NFL was “pray for Damar.” One ESPN analyst literally prayed out loud on live television, asking God to intervene and heal Damar. While in critical condition in the days following the game, Damar himself was able to get the word out asking the country to “continue to pray for him.”  

Now what made this situation different? Why did so many people default to prayer as their knee-jerk response? I would suggest it’s because we all know instinctually as creatures of God that in situations of life and death, there is only One Person who holds ultimate authority and power. Romans 1 makes the case that deep down everyone knows there is a God. So maybe the doctors can handle a torn ACL, we think. But when your heart stops, there is nowhere else to turn — God is our only hope. 

And the Bible is clear on this. One, all of us are going to die, and perhaps watching that frightening scene with Damar Hamlin reminded some of us how quickly that can come. Psalm 144 says,

“Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow."

But also, in those moments of fear and danger, God invites us to come to him.  We see in Psalm 50 God says,

“Call on me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

So perhaps the day of trouble, a near-brush with death, pulls back the veil on the true reality of the universe, that God alone is our only hope in life and death. But as Christians, we don’t have to wait — the same God who has power over death has total power over every waking moment of our lives as well, and we can walk with him, talk with him, experience the joy of living in communion with him now.

And this reminds us of our need to confess our sins.