“Total Defeat” from the Kazuya Akimoto Art Museum

Lessons of Loss

No doubt anyone from the Seattle area has asked this question in the last several days: “Can we do that over again?” Questions of “what if” hang in the air as fans and supporters come to grips with an unbelievable loss at the end of the Super Bowl.

It is easy to celebrate and feel great about a win, We’re not quite sure what to do with a loss. We rally together for winning because it represents the higher points of life and existence. Loss is more of a scattering agent as we try to flee the reality that none of us welcomes and yet none of us can ultimately escape–we can’t win all of the time.

While no one wants to celebrate a loss, its often times of losing that offer unexpected opportunity–the opportunity to find ourselves, to find out who really loves us unconditionally, to discover second chances and new tomorrows and to experience the presence of God in Christ that remains when all other things fall away.

The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the church at Philippi, wrote: “whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.” (Philippians 3: 7-9)

When we know Christ Jesus, even the moments of loss are ultimately okay. In the stunned silence of loss, Christ’s presence is a light and hope that assures us, though we cannot change what happened yesterday, we can live today confident that his love is with us.

Beyond football, there are daily losses that many endure. If you are sitting stunned and silenced because of a lost job, a lost marriage, a lost child, a lost chance to do something good or right, a lost hope or dream, know that this moment is not the last. In Christ there is hope and presence that our losses will be resurrected to new life.

Press on

I am sure the Apostle Paul had trying days of loss as he worked to spread the love of Christ to others. May his words in Philippians remind you of the hope we can all hold: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death,  if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3: 10-14)