Life on the Pasture

This morning, I watched a few innings of live baseball from Korea. It was the first live baseball I have seen since a televised Spring Training game in March. It doesn’t matter to me that I know none of the players in the Korean Baseball Organization except former Brewer Tyler Saladino who now plays for the Samsung Lions. Baseball is back!

My favorite movie is the 1989 baseball classic Field of Dreams. During one scene in the movie, Terence Mann (payed by James Earl Jones), says these memorable lines to Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner) who has turned his Iowa cornfield into a ball diamond after hearing a voice tell him, “If you build it, they will come:” “People will come, Ray. The one constant through all the years Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”

In other words, especially for us in the northern hemisphere who experience a long snowy winter, baseball’s Spring Training and Opening Day bring with them a sense of hope for better days just as the temperature starts to rise and creation comes back to life after a season of dormancy. The crack of the bat and smack of the ball in the glove are as welcome a sound as the chirp of the returning birds. And since all levels of baseball around here have been suspended, the Korean Baseball Organization will have to fill my baseball craving. I would never have imagined that a few months ago. 

But neither would I have imagined preparing and recording online worship services and Bible studies, teaching Religion, History and Confirmation classes via Zoom meetings, having small group opportunities for Holy Communion, and not being able to visit people in the hospital or care centers. Yet that continues to be our present-day reality, as does the growing economic burden for many, the pain of not being able to physically be with loved ones, and the fear of the possibility of you or loved ones in high at-risk groups being infected.

David writes, “Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning…. To You, LORD, I called; to the Lord I cried for mercy: ‘What is gained if I am silenced, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it proclaim Your faithfulness? Hear, LORD, and be merciful to me; LORD, be my help. ” You turned my wailing into dancing; You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing Your praises and not be silent. LORD my God, I will praise You forever.” (Psalm 30:5b, 8-12, NIV) 

As strange as it may sound, watching a few innings of a baseball game from Korea early this morning brought me back to the truth of those words. Joy is coming. In fact, joy is still here, albeit somewhat obscured at the moment. Jesus is still with us. And where Jesus is, there is joy. That’s the sure hope we have not just in spring, but through every season of life.

– Pastor Schmidt