Category: 99 Days of Football (Page 2 of 9)

The Question of Sacred Space

August 21, 2007 / Allan / 10 Comments

This may be a long one.

This blog contains another Legacy Worship Center Construction Update with new, never-before-seen photos; a Mark Teixeira reference; and the number nine. Hang with me.

My family and I had the pleasure of attending the Celese Courtney – Randall Roseberry wedding at TCU’s Robert Carr Chapel Saturday. (It’s always seemed to me that everybody here at Legacy was related to somebody else at Legacy. And that wedding made it official. Now we are all truly a church family.) Yes, the girls love attending weddings. And Carrie-Anne and I always try to use opportunities like that to teach them about marriage and commitment and love, even though sometimes it seems they’re only interested in the wedding mints and throwing birdseed.

But I was struck by a couple of things at that wedding that I’ve been wrestling with since Saturday. And it may take a full week of blogging and your comments and suggestions to work them through.

The chapel, built in 1953 on the TCU campus, is gorgeous. Simple, but elegant. And it just feels holy. It just feels sacred. As soon as you walk into the place, you know without a doubt you are in a house of worship. You feel like you’re in the presence of God and people who belong to God. It looks and feels like a church. Not like a gym or a performance hall. You know what I mean?

The Carr Chapel is sacred space. It is holy. It is set apart. And it’s done intentionally.

Because it is designated, holy, set apart space, they’re very picky about what happens and what doesn’t happen at the Carr Chapel. And how it happens. Check out some of their rules and regulations for those using the chapel for wedding services:

“Chapel furniture, including the communion table, the kneeling bench, and the cross may not be moved or have decorations placed on them. A floral arrangement may be placed in front of the cross if it doesn’t exceed 40-inches in height.”

“All weddings held in Robert Carr Chapel are religious services and as such certain protocol is expected.”

“Professional photography and video may only be conducted from the balcony. Guests are not allowed to take pictures from the sanctuary during the ceremony.”

“Only music that is of a religious or sacred nature may be used in the chapel. The mention of God or Jesus does not necessarily make a song religious. Love songs are not appropriate.”

“Electronic amplifiers, recorded music, and electronic keyboards are prohibited.”

I think we in the Church of Christ have rightly taught that the Church is not the building, it’s the people. We rightly hold that we worship in spirit the One who is Spirit and that wherever two or three are gathered in his Name, the Lord is present. We teach and believe — again, rightly so — that God is no more present with me in a Christian assembly of a thousand disciples on a Sunday morning than he is with me in my closet at home.

But I’m afraid we’ve taught that and held that and pushed that to the extent that we’ve lost the Biblical concept of sacred space.

Bethel. Mount Sinai. The burning bush. The Ark of the Covenant. The Holy of Holies. Shechem. All holy. All sacred places set apart from the other places because that’s where God meets with his people. Can you imagine the Israelites ever holding a garage sale inside the Temple? Can you imagine Carr Chapel bringing in a big screen and showing the Super Bowl?

Robert E. Webber, in a chapter on the environmental setting of worship in his book Worship Old and New, says that our worship space is the “stage on which the redemption of the world is acted out.” And that truth is expressed in the signs of redemption all around the worship area such as the table, the pulpit, the baptistry, and the arrangement of the chairs for the congregants who also enact the Gospel. According to Webber, this tells us that all material things belong to God and can be used to communicate truth about God. The repeated emphasis in our Scriptures that God dwells in the tabernacle or the temple also shows us that we can symbolically communicate the presence of God in the Church and in the world. And the dozens of references to “God’s glory” filling the space acknowledges God’s real presence in that space with his people. Webber points to Solomon’s dedication of the temple as providing the model for consecration of sacred space, “not to be regarded as an exercise associated with magic, but as an act that sets apart a particular place for the community to publicly meet God. The Christian church has continued to use the practice of consecration and recognized that the place where people gather to worship is special.”

Again, I think you can get carried away with that.

But I’m afraid we sometimes plan worship space and use worship space in theological error and, worse, with theological indifference. We don’t think about these things. Or we think these things don’t matter.

I think we’re hurt here at Legacy by being forced to assemble together for the expressed purpose of meeting God and worshiping God in a place that’s also used as a basketball gym and a dining hall and a variety of other activities that have very little, if anything, to do with the holy presence of our holy God. Our gym / fellowship hall doesn’t have a look or a feel that’s any different from a recreation center or cafeteria or exercise space or school auditorium you could find in any part of our city. I may be overstating this, but I’m not sure there’s an overwhelming sense of a separation between the sacred and the profane in our current setup. And that certainly creeps into our view of worship, our view of God, and our view of what’s really happening on Sundays: God’s holy people meeting with their holy God.

Having said that, I’m so excited about our new Worship Center, currently in the beginning stages of construction here at Legacy. I’m thrilled for this body of believers to have a space set apart, a sacred space, a holy place, where we can meet our God. And I’m interested in your thoughts and your experiences as they relate to this question of sacred space.

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Legacy Worship Center Construction Update

The mountains are gone. They’ve either been smoothed out, hauled out, or a whole lot of both. It’s very clear now where the additional parking spaces are going to be. And the ground where the new Worship Center and the Youth and Benevolent Centers are going to be is smooth and flat.

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Only nine more days until football season. And the all-time greatest #9 is old Redskins quarterback Sonny Jurgensen. He started with the Eagles as a fourth round pick out of Duke University in 1957 and peaked with them in 1962 with 32 touchdown passes. But he went to Washington in 1964 in a trade for Norm Snead and went on to lead the NFL in passing three times over the next ten seasons.

As a Redskin, Jurgensen threw for over 3,000 yards five times, he had 25 games with over 300 yards passing, and five more games with at least 400 yards. He went to five Pro Bowls and finished his 18 year NFL career with a QB rating of 82.63 and as the 9th all-time leader in passing TDs. Jurgensen was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983. Don’t give me Tony Romo. Sonny Jurgensen was the best to ever wear #9.

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What else would you expect from a superstar traded away from the Texas Rangers? He’s killing! Mark Teixeira hit two more homeruns yesterday, giving him nine HRs and 25 RBIs in his 18 games with the Atlanta Braves. They’re still five games behind the Mets in the NL East. But he’s killing! Good for him.

Peace,

Allan

The Peace of Christ

August 20, 2007 / Allan / 2 Comments

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” ~Colossians 3:12-17

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

Only our Savior brings true and perfect peace — the wholeness and completeness of a right relationship with God our Father and with each other. God’s ministry through his Son, his plan for all of mankind, is to reconcile creation back to himself. That’s peace. Perfect peace. The peace of Christ. And it’s marked by forgiveness and gentleness and compassion and it’s all tied up in love.

The rub comes when we understand that the peace of Christ isn’t always peaceful. Where a person or a group of people are allowing God’s Holy Spirit to work in them and through them and for them to make them more into the image of Christ and sanctified to God, there’s always going to be friction and conflict. It’s not easy. It’s difficult. The peace of Christ always comes with a sacrifice. With trials and suffering. The peace of Christ comes in the way of Christ. He calls us to be peacemakers, not peacekeepers. And there’s a huge difference.

As for letting that peace of Christ rule in your hearts, the picture there is of an umpire at the athletic games that were so very popular both in Paul’s day in Colosse and in our day in America. The umpire would serve to qualify those who were eligible to compete and disqualify those who weren’t. His “rule” was the rule. And at the end of the game, it was the umpire who rewarded the victor with his crown. The umpire ruled who was in and who was out, who won and who lost.

Paul says let the peace of Christ “rule” in your hearts. Let God’s ministry of reconciliation and perfect peace that’s only found in a right relationship with God and each other through Jesus, let that peace rule the things you say and do, the way you act and react and respond, the plans you make and execute in the Kingdom and in the community.

Let that peace determine what you throw out and what you keep.

Does it bring people closer to each other and to Christ? Keep it. Does it take that peace of Christ to my neighbors? Do it. Does it only serve my selfish interests? Lose it. Is it only useful for making my wallet fatter or my car nicer? Forget it. Does it encourage? Is it kind? Does it relieve the burdens of others? Move on it. Does it tear down relationships? Does it give me pride or reason to boast? Is it unfair? Get rid of it.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

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I’m so grateful to Mark Shipp and Ray Vanderlaan for their excellent scholarship in our Hebrew Scriptures and for the ways they’ve inspired me to see the pictures in our Bible. I give them all the credit in the world for the slideshow presentation I made last night at Legacy and the message I delivered of seeing the ways God communicates great truth through pictures. I’m still, in so many ways, just a beginner in this area of Bible study. But it moves me. It speaks to me. It grabs my heart and my soul in brand new ways that I can’t help but want to share. I could have gone for a couple of hours. Some of you are glad I didn’t. But thank you so much to those of you who told me you would have stayed if I had.

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There are ten days left until football season — not preseason games or controlled scrimmages or two-a-day practices, real games that mean something and count in the standings, real games with real quarterbacks and running backs and wide receivers even into the fourth quarter. And in the continuing countdown to that first day of games, we honor the greatest football player to ever wear the #10: Fran Tarkenton.

As an All-America quarterback at the University of Georgia, he was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings and threw four TD passes in his first ever NFL game. He took the Vikings to three Super Bowls — all losses — and was called by Bud Grant “the greatest quarterback to ever play the game.” OK, that’s a bit of a stretch. But he was pretty stinkin’ good. After his 18 year pro career — he spent his last five years with the Giants — Tarkenton was tops in the NFL record books for passing attempts, completions, passing yards, passing TDs, rushing yards as a QB (3,674), and rushing TDs as a QB (32).

The man could scramble.

He also hosted “That’s Incredible” with John Davidson and Cathy Lee Crosby and spent just a season, I think, on Monday Night Football.

Catching up from yesterday, #11 is “America’s Punter,” as Roger Staubach called him, Danny White.

White set seven NCAA passing records while quarterbacking at Arizona State and he spent his first two professional years with the Memphis Southmen of the old World Football League. But it was with the Dallas Cowboys where Danny White made his mark, taking the team to three straight NFC Championship Games in the three years after Staubach’s retirement. As Staubach’s backup for four years he served as the Cowboys punter and was a legitimate threat to run or pass every time. He did both from 1980 – 1988, except for that weird controversy with Gary Hogeboom. And when he was forced out with Jimmy Johnson’s drafting of Troy Aikman, White left with a record of 67-35 as a starter on some pretty bad teams (41-11 at Texas Stadium), a 59.7% completion rate, and 155 TD passes. He still, today, holds eight Cowboys records.

Danny White never got his due. He was the victim of horrible timing throughout his Cowboys career. And if it weren’t for Dwight Clark’s catch, Wilbert Montgomery’s run, and the ’82 strike, White may have a couple of Super Bowl victories and a spot in the Hall of Fame. He is in the Arena Football Hall of Fame. As the head coach of the Arizona Rattlers, White went to five ArenaBowls in 14 years and won two of them. He’s also in the College Football Hall of Fame and was named the Arizona Athlete of the Century by some newspaper in Phoenix in 1999.

Ricky Williams, based solely on the fact that he was the NCAA’s all-time leading rusher when he left Texas, deserves at least a mention — I’m not sure how honorable — because he did wear the #11 during his freshman year. And who could forget the Eagles legendary quarterback, Norm Van Brocklin? But Danny White gets the nod. And tomorrow we’re into single digits.

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By the way, the Cowboys looked pretty good Saturday night for a team that’s going to go 8-8 this year.

(That’s not official. I’m giving my actual game-by-game prediction one week from today.)

Peace,

Allan

The Scandal of the Cross

August 17, 2007 / Allan / 3 Comments

“And we thank God continually because, when you received the Word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the Word of God, which is at work in you who believe.” ~1 Thessalonians 2:13

How did those people in Thessalonica know that what Paul was preaching was the Word of God and not just the latest philosophy of the day? How did they know the message was truly divine and not human?

It occurs to me that maybe because it was so radically different from anything anybody else was teaching, it had to be from someone other than man and from somewhere other than this world. The message of the cross — the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus — was scandalous. It was foolishness to Jews and Gentiles. It was an affront to formal education and good common sense. The message of the cross goes completely against human philosophy and technology, totally against wisdom and experience.

The Jews in Thessalonica were searching for an earthly Messiah. The Greeks in Thessalonica were looking for larger than life gods. And Paul and Silas and Timothy blow into town preaching about a poor carpenter turned homeless preacher who was executed by the state as a disgraced criminal.

It’s like telling you today that the earth is flat! And expecting you to believe it!

That’s why Paul writes at the end of 1 Corinthians 1 that God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things, the despised things, “the things that are not,” to nullify the things that are. And it’s in those things God chose where we find our “righteousness, holiness, and redemption.”

The message of the cross turns the world upside down.

And I think we’ve lost some of that aspect of it — that shocking, stunning, jarring aspect of the Word of God that reverses the natural order.

Is it because we’ve heard it for so long? Are we desensitized to it? Or is it because it is so radical and shocking and scandalous we’ve attempted to soften it up? Have we changed it in any ways, or left some key parts of the gospel of the cross out, so that our lives or the lives of our friends aren’t rocked by it?

Peter Berger wrote this in a book called Worldly Wisdom, Christian Foolishness: “Trying to adapt the gospel message, or tweak the nature of the church or in any way alter Christian beliefs so they conform more closely to the society in which we live is foolish and futile and damaging. I would argue, sinful. If the gospel looks like or sounds like the world, then it’s not the gospel. Because the gospel is not of this world.”

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Thirteen days until football season. And the best player to ever wear #13 is Dan Marino. As a college quarterback at Pittsburgh, he led the Panthers to three straight 11-1 seasons and was named All-America his junior year after throwing for 37 touchdowns. His senior year was less than great — 17 TDs and 23 picks — but the Miami Dolphins still made him their #1 pick, the 27th player taken overall in 1983, the 6th QB.

In his rookie season, Marino took Shula’s ‘Fins to the Super Bowl, a loss to the 49ers, and became the first ever rookie quarterback to start in the Pro Bowl. He made eight more of those Pro Bowls during his 17 year career in Miami. But he never made it to another Super Bowl.

Marino had one of the quickest releases ever for an NFL quarterback and rarely got sacked. He threw for over 61,000 yards, 420 touchdowns, and compiled over 400 yards passing in a game 13 times. 21 times he threw at least four TDs in a game. And he had six seasons of over 4,000 yards. The only quarterbacks to ever do that more than once are Warren Moon and Dan Fouts. And they only managed it twice.

Marino holds 29 NFL passing records, spots in the college and pro football halls of fame, and some very cheesy Isotoner glove commercials. And he’s the greatest to ever wear #13.

I always unveil Saturday’s player on Friday. But I’m hesitant today because #12 in the countdown deserves his own post, his own page. But here we go.

No brainer.

The best football player to ever wear #12 is Roger Staubach.

Surprise?

Yeah, right.

Terry Bradshaw won four Super Bowls in six years and deserves honorable mention despite this hilarious hair restoration advertisement. By the way, I do think Hollywood Henderson was wrong. If you spotted Bradshaw both the “c” and the “a” he probably could spell “cat.” Just the “c”? That’s a better argument. (Shout out to Fleming! Love you, brother!)

Joe Namath deserves credit for his brash personality and guaranteed Jets win in Super Bowl III that sealed the merger between the NFL and the AFL, despite this awful Sports Illustrated cover.

And Bob Griese was great (nice goggles).

But Staubach is the best.

As the starting quarterback at Navy for three seasons (1962-64) Staubach set 28 school records and finished with an amazing 63% completion rate. And he threw only 19 interceptions during those three years. In ’63 he won the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award, and was named All-America after leading the Midshipmen to a 9-1 record, the only loss coming against Texas in the Cotton Bowl. Good enough to earn Staubach speedy induction into the College Football Hall of Fame.

His pro career got started a little late due to his service in Vietnam. But when Staubach began playing in Dallas for Tom Landry’s Cowboys, the glory days had finally arrived. Staubach is the one who guided the Cowboys from Next Year’s Champions to World Champions, taking them to four Super Bowls, beating the Dolphins in Super Bowl VI and the Broncos in Super Bowl XII. During Staubach’s eleven year career in Dallas, which ended prematurely due to all the concussions, he threw for almost 23,000 yards and 153 TDs, he ran for more than 2,200 yards and scored 20 more TDs rushing, and finished with a passer rating of 83.4.

He was the clean-cut, no-cussing, faithful-to-his-wife-and-family, never-late-for-curfew, Christian leader of America’s Team (As J. Bailey says, those were the days when the church was strong and Tom Landry was coaching the Cowboys.) He coined the term “Hail Mary Pass” in the closing seconds of that playoff game against the Vikings (check out the stunned looks on the faces of the Vikings players and fans in this picture! Geoff, Drew did not push off on Nate Wright!); he called Tom Landry “the man in the funny hat”; he handed off to Duane Thomas, Walt Garrison, Tony Dorsett, Calvin Hill, Robert Newhouse, and Ron Springs; he threw deep to Drew Pearson, Tony Hill, Golden Richards, and Mike Ditka; he made the shotgun formation popular again after a 40-year absence; and he scrambled and dodged and ran like crazy. In his last ever regular season game, he beat the Redskins at Texas Stadium 35-34 on a fade route to Tony Hill to capture the division title. And the following week he completed his last ever professional pass, an illegal catch by offensive lineman Herb Scott in a playoff loss to the Rams.

Growing up in Dallas in the ’70s, I wanted to be just like him. He ruled the city, the state, and the world as far as I could tell. I got his autograph in the parking lot at Dallas Christian one morning after he had spoken at chapel. And I sat next to him at the news conference at Texas Stadium announcing Tex Schramm’s induction into the Cowboys Ring of Honor. He was my childhood hero and a role model for anyone. Roger Staubach is the greatest to ever wear #12.

No brainer.

Peace,

Allan

Now These Three Remain…

August 16, 2007 / Allan / 0 Comments

As we continue looking at the church in Thessalonica over the next several weeks at Legacy as a “model to all the believers” let’s keep Paul’s thanksgiving in 1 Thessalonians 1 as the background music. Paul is grateful to God for the Christians’ “work produced by faith, labor prompted by love, and endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Faith, hope, and love.

This triad of Christian virtues is mentioned again towards the end of the letter as armor to be worn by the believers in a continual state of readiness for Christ’s return. But it’s not just Paul who puts so much emphasis on faith, hope, and love as foundational and fundamental to our Christian walk. While he sprinkles most of his letters with this language, you can also find Peter writing about our faith and hope in God in the same sentence with our sincere love for our brothers. The writer of Hebrews carries the theme by reminding us of the full assurance of faith, the hope we profess, and the love we have for each other.

The dozen or so New Testament references to faith, hope, and love cannot be ignored. In fact, they should be highlighted just as they were intended by the inspired writers. They serve as a kind of shorthand summary of the essentials of Christianity and what it means to be a Christian: faith as the assurance that God has acted in Christ to save his people, love as the expression and experience of the restored relationship between God and his people and his people with each other, and hope as the confidence that our Lord will bring his work to completion and the future holds not “wrath but…salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (5:9) Notice, too, that the Bible never thanks people for their hope or faith or love. The Bible always thanks God for those things recognized in people. All three of these virtues and active proofs of God’s grace are gifts from our Father. They don’t come from anywhere else.

Even if you already have, and especially if you haven’t yet, read all five chapters of 1 Thessalonians sometime between now and Sunday. And may our God bless us as we strive to imitate our spiritual ancestors in Thessalonica.

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Two weeks from tonight, 14 more days, the real football season begins with games that really count. And today’s all-time #14 is legendary quarterback and pioneer of the game Y. A. Tittle. He was born in Marshall, Texas and played his college ball at LSU. And when he went to the Baltimore Colts in 1948 he was named NFL Rookie of the Year. Three years later the team disbanded and so Tittle went to San Francisco where he quarterbacked the 49ers for ten seasons. But it was with the New York Giants, in the nation’s largest market at the time when pro football was really beginning to catch on, where Tittle made his name and his legend. In just four seasons, from 1961-64, he led the Giants to three division titles while winning NFL MVP honors twice and appearing in the Pro Bowl four times. He passed for over 300 yards 13 times in those four seasons, throwing for 33 touchdowns in 1962 and 36 more in ’63. When he finished his career, Tittle had thrown for more than 33,000 yards and 242 TDs.

Dan Fouts, by virtue of his amazing numbers and his leadership role with Air Coryell’s revolutionary offense in San Diego, deserves honorable mention. But Hall of Famer and football pioneer Y. A. Tittle gets the nod as the best to ever wear #14.

Peace,

Allan

Without Cause, Without Measure, Without End

August 15, 2007 / Allan / 2 Comments

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” ~Romans 5:6-11

I’ve heard it said over and over again, “God helps those who help themselves.” And it’s always said as if it’s some deep profound theological truth that’s rooted in Scripture. Actually, Scripture teaches us exactly the opposite. From Genesis through Revelation, the entire canon of God’s Word proclaims loudly and unambiguously that “God helps those who cannot help themselves!”

While we were powerless. Ungodly. Sinners. God’s enemies.

It’s at that point that God reaches through the barriers of time and space and rescues me — when I’m wholly unable to do anything about my salvation myself. I’ve never done anything in my life to merit God’s favor. In fact, most of my life, I feel, looking back, is an affront to our God. And it’s at that moment he sends his Son to die for me. God’s love for me is completely without cause.

And it’s without measure. To what can I compare it? With all of my sin and selfishness and arrogance and pride and inclination to evil and rebellion, I wouldn’t die for me. But God did. Who else does that?

And God’s love for me is without end. I’m reconciled through Christ’s death. But the fact that he lives and reigns at the right hand of the Father fills me with confidence that he lives and reigns to keep me, to constantly wash me, to ensure my eternal destiny with him in the eternal Kingdom.

Hallelujah.

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In just 15 days the real football season begins with eleven college games that mean something, that count in the standings, that matter in real life, climaxing with LSU and Mississippi State on ESPN. And today’s all-time greatest to ever wear the #15 is not Babe Laufenberg. It’s a guy who mainly rode the bench at Alabama and wasn’t drafted by his NFL team, the Green Bay Packers, until the 17th round!

Bart Starr spent 16 years with the Packers, leading them to six Division titles, five NFL titles, and two Super Bowl wins. He was the NFL MVP in 1966 and the MVP in both of those first two Super Bowls. He was the NFL passing champion three times and represented Title Town in four Pro Bowls. His career completion rate of 57.4% is among the best ever. And, of course, he’s in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Packers attempted to manipulate fate and recapture some of that Title Town magic when they hired Starr as the head coach in 1975. But he went 52-76-3 over nine years, making the playoffs only once.

But that doesn’t tarnish what he did as a player. Bart Starr defined an era, almost two decades, as the championship quarterback of the undisputed dominant team in the NFL. And he’s the best player to ever wear #15.

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“I expect naught from myself, everything from the work of Christ. My service has its objectivity in that expectation and by it I am freed from all anxiety about my insufficiency and failure.”

Peace,

Allan

Running Late

August 14, 2007 / Allan / 3 Comments

I’m so sorry it’s after 2:00 in the afternoon and I’m just now getting to the blog. It’s been one of those wonderfully rewarding mornings — into the afternoon now — of visiting with people and counseling and ministering. This post will be a quick hit-and-run. My apologies.

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Legacy Worship Center Construction Update

I have no idea what this huge piece of machinary is called or exactly what it does. But it’s massive and it’s digging some pretty impressive holes out here today.

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There are 16 days until football season. And while some truly great football players such as GeorgeBlanda, Frank Gifford, and LenDawson have worn the #16, the all-time greatest is 49ers QB Joe Montana. He was great at Notre Dame. But he made his mark as the championship signal-caller in San Francisco. He accounted for 40,551 yards passing and almost another 1,700 yards rushing during his NFL career, and he’s still in the top four all-time in the NFL record books for attempts, completions, yards, TDs, passing percentage, and pass-to-interception ratio. He won four Super Bowls and three Super Bowl MVPs and played in eight Pro Bowls. He and Jerry Rice hooked up for 68 TDs, the most prolific points scoring tandem in NFL history at the time of his retirement. Montana pulled off 31 4th quarter comeback victories in his 15 year career. In 1981, “The Catch” completely reversed the fortunes of two franchises in Dallas and San Francisco and ruined the career of one of my favorite quarterbacks, Danny White. Cowboys apologists will always say that pass to Dwight Clark over Everson Walls in the end zone at Candlestick was a lucky play. It wasn’t. It was truly heartbreaking. But it was a great play. And Montana’s the greatest player to ever wear #16.

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I don’t know what to make of the news that Van Halen is kicking off a concert tour and planning to record another album. I’m nervous about Diamond Dave re-joining the group, troubled by the absence of Michael Anthony, and skeptical about Eddie’s 16-year-old son, Wolfgang, not only playing bass but also picking all the songs. I’ve been burned by Van Halen concerts many times. A last minute cancellation in OKC. Sammy Hagar losing his voice at the Cotton Bowl two songs into the show and Anthony singing Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” as they left the stage. David Lee Roth forgetting the words to “Beautiful Girl.” Will any of that keep me away? Doubt it.

Peace,

Allan

Category: 99 Days of Football (Page 2 of 9)

The Question of Sacred Space

The Peace of Christ

The Scandal of the Cross

Now These Three Remain…

Without Cause, Without Measure, Without End

Running Late

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