Laying one down: Baseball and sacrifice
We are well into Lent and its disciplines. Holy Week is fast upon us. And the baseball season is beginning. I’ve always considered this convergence of calendars fitting. Baseball is a gospel game, or so it seems to me. At the very least, it bears a portion of the gospel’s image.
The humble sacrifice bunt, for example, can help us see how sacrifice works. It can help us see how a sacrificial offering might save and what authority it might assume. Above all, it helps identify the intended ends of the one who deliberately suffers loss for the sake of another.
A runner is stranded on base, in a far country, unable to get home on his own. The batter, sent by another, lays down a bunt. His aim, his desire, is to obey the manager and get the runner home.
