How Dreadful It Is To March Out To Mount Mariah

Jesus. Am I right? Jesus. Dude gets conceived inside some woman married to a guy she's not sleeping with yet and manages not to get aborted. MIRACLE #1. Grows up, bad hair, not much of a sense of humor, but draws a crowd, judiciously breaks out his party pieces among some captive audiences like lepers and dead people and then, just like Kurt Cobain, is savvy enough to die before he can put out some self-derivative work that causes people to second guess his status as a Chosen One. Nobody can name one Pearl Jam song after 1994, but Nevermind lives forever.

Hey, you know who else lives forever? Jesus. Well, kind of. It's one of those faith paradoxes that you have to accept that he actually died--not sort of died or metaphorically died, but for-realsy snuffed it--while simultaneously believing that through dying he achieved eternal life. The same way you have to believe Jesus was both fully human and fully divine at the same time, even if you are reading above and first-grade level and understand what the word "fully" means. It's faith, people. In a coincidence of metaphysical convenience, questioning or attempting to reconcile it is exactly what makes it disappear, like trying to get a better look at shadows by using a flashlight.

Dismiss faith and its paradoxes as the province of the simple and you'd be in defiance of F. Scott Fitzgerald who said famously "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." And... eh... now that I think about it, that "ability to function" bit is a little problematical with regard to religious types if we accept that to extend to certain cognitive or social skills, like rationality or voting practices. So maybe ole Scotty Fitz wasn't thinking of religion specifically, but I'm sure he would have come around if only he'd gotten the right person to witness for him. Shit, they wore down Norma McCorvey and I'm sure Fitzgerald never had an abortion. Anything's possible.

We all know logic is unimpeachable when you force it into a syllogistic structure, so: God loves everyone and everything. America is a thing. Therefore God loves America. And also by extension, since we already proved the incarnation thing before, Jesus is God. Therefore Jesus loves America. Jesus loves everyone. Americans are someones. Jesus therefore loves all Americans. All Americans* love football. And therefore Jesus loves football.

Break that down, I dare you. If you need more proof, about the same percentage of the population this Sunday are going to be watching the Super Bowl in America as also believe angels are real things. If you're going to chalk that up to coincidence, then you're trying not to understand. Wake up.

So it makes sense when Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson says the quality of his play in the NFC Championship Game was putrescently lavatorial because it would then maximize the glory-ness of an omnipotent, America-loving God if he were to perform at Leafian depths and then, at the end, get bailed out by stupid luck and make one decent throw. This is what's known as the Tebow Scheme, which normally ends up in giving up full-time playing for broadcasting by the time you're 25 years old.**

But for Russell Wilson, unlike Tebow, who was hampered by a nagging inability to throw things correctly and thus left football, he moves on to this weekends Super Bowl XLIX, his second consecutive Super Bowl.

It was Kierkegaard, speaking of Abraham's attempted murder of his own son Isaac, of faith generally and, by obvious extension, also football, who said, and I paraphrase: "Who gave strength to Abraham’s arm? Who held his right hand up so that it did not fall limp at his side? He who gazes at this becomes paralyzed. Who gave strength to Abraham’s soul, so that his eyes did not grow dim, so that he saw neither Isaac nor the ram? He who gazes at this becomes blind. -- And yet rare enough perhaps is the man who becomes paralyzed and blind, still more rare one who worthily recounts what happened. We all know it -- it was only a trial."

That's right. If Abraham had hesitated, had he anticipated a reprieve, had he longed for the alternative to his suffering, it would have negated the value of his sacrifice and proven him faithless. Who held up Russell Wilson's right arm when he should have tucked the ball away and maybe taken a sack instead of throwing into coverage and bunch of stupid times? That's right, it was Jesus.*** Throwing four interceptions is exactly the same as filial blood sacrifice. These are the sign markers along the path to true expressions of faith.

I bet Abraham would've had to endure ten kinds of twitter shade afterward too.



---

*You know who you aren't.

**Call it a failure if you want to, but everyone knows Jesus loves Tebow and his legendary on-full-display-for-maximum-public-impact acts of performance humility. I call it life after football death.

***Very specifically not the same Old Testament Jewish God from Abraham, I'm sure Mr. Wilson would like you to know.