Opening Day

This is the day we have all been waiting for!

No, not the first day of spring, silly - Opening Day!
The first day of the brand new baseball season. The sun
is shining, the sky is blue, the birds are singing, and the
Reds are playing baseball!!!

And here in Cincinnati, it is the same as a national holiday.
Call just about any office, any person, and the message is
the same - "sorry, I am working out of the office today;
I won't be in the office today; my apologies, I am not at
my desk today." Right. The critical work that everyone
is "out of the office" for today is baseball. If you don't have
tickets to the game, you are at home, sitting out on your
deck, in your favorite chair, listening to the game on radio.

A local sports writer says that baseball players are luckier
than the rest of us who work. Every year, they have a day
when the slate is wiped clean, when the past is forgotten,
when the future lies before them, when they can write new
statistics, new chapters, a new life. It is called "Opening Day."
Oh, don't we all wish we had an annual Opening Day at our
jobs, in our marriages, in our journeys, in our lives!

For believers, we do.

Because of what God, in Christ, did on that Opening Day
of all opening days, we have that chance to have the pages
torn out of the book of life and new, blank pages put in.
Because of that first Easter, when Jesus strode from the
darkness of death into the new creation, we can walk out
of the shadows of our sin into the future God holds out
to us. Because of that first day of the week, when the
stone was rolled away, and the doors to the Kingdom
were thrown open, our past is behind us, our life is
before us, our journey begins anew!

And now, every morning is Easter; every waking is
a fresh start; every day is Opening Day!

Play Ball!!!

(c) 2005 Thom M. Shuman