The Underdog? Really?
Each year around this time, my wife and I get really excited.
Tara is one of the most rabid college basketball fans I have ever seen (especially during the tournament), and we always end up watching games we have no stake in (no real rooting interest). And somehow, I always find myself rooting for the underdogs. I always seem to pick the team (as my rooting interest) who has much less of a chance to win.
There are occasional lapses in this behavior, but they usually occur as a result of a rooting interest of some sort. I will root for Duke (sort an anti-UK thing), and I will root for WVU (Bob Huggins was the coach at UC for a long time).
But the majority of the time, I end up rooting for the underdog. And I’m fairly certain I’m not the only one.
So this morning, as I was listening to the talking heads on sports radio jabber on about who can and can’t win, I began to wonder why that is…
What in our brains and hearts beckons us to cheer for the team that is the lesser of the two playing? Why do we watch movies and cheer for the “average girl” who gets the guy from the “supermodel?” Why do we consistently root for David instead of Goliath?
I mean, if we’re honest the other team/girl/giant guy has everything we want to be. Power, strength, beauty, grace, talent… they are excellent in almost every perceivable way. We want to be them. All of the things we wish about ourselves are manifested in them.
Yet for some reason we pick the down-trodden, the smaller, the weaker, the average… but why?
…
Really, the answer is quite simple.
We need to believe we can win.
We need to believe that despite our inadequacies, despite our flaws, despite our weakness and despite, at times, feeling utterly worthless, that we have the chance to achieve all our goals and dreams. We need to believe we can win.
If I don’t believe victory is possible, I have no hope. I have nothing to dream for, nothing to strive for. But if that underdog can do it, then maybe I can too. It’s the hope of a chance that drives us.
I identify with the underdog. I’m in terrible shape. I am weak, inconsistent, powerless, and utterly hopeless.
So the underdog is a representation of how we generally view ourselves. We know our flaws, and if we’re honest, when we do succeed, it’s generally in spite of our weakness more often than it is because of our greatness.
But there is another reason we innately root for the underdog…
A long time ago, the Jews were awaiting a “Goliath” king. Someone who was strong, powerful, graceful, elegant, well-spoken, well-liked, and generally king-like. But they got a baby, born to a poor man, in the humblest of circumstances. And that baby, that son of a carpenter grew into a leader in spite of his poor social status. But he was an underdog as a leader. He didn’t command a throne, or even talk like any leader people had ever seen. He was a “common” man (miracles aside) who associated with common, underdog-type men.
Then, when it seemed like he would do the “sane” thing, and finally ascend to greatness in the way we had all planned, he lowered himself again. And died. No one can beat death. No one can win against the ultimate punishment and humiliation he endured.
But the underdog prevailed once more.
Jesus Christ died for our sins, and rose from the dead, to conquer everything that holds us down. And the funny part is that most of the time when we talk about it, we leave out the most important part of that process.
We speak of Jesus dying for our sins (He did, and that is monumentally important), but we leave off the fact (not intentionally) that He rose from the dead. That’s why we can have hope. Christ won. He beat death, he “slew the giant,” and in doing so he created an avenue, a way, for us to win. Had he just died for our sins, it would have been a touching sacrifice, but we still would have no way to conquer death. That would be it. Death would win, and remain undefeated.
But He did. And we can.
I root for the underdog because the underdog is me. There is no way I should be able to win. There is nothing I can do inside my own power that will be enough to achieve victory. But I don’t have to do it on my own. The path has been cleared.
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