Special Edition: Humility in Our Nation's Capital

From the land of misleading titles I bring you this:

The St. Louis Cardinals have just had another amazing comeback victory to put themselves in the National League (ie "Real Baseball") Championship Series against the San Francisco Giants.  To reach this point, the Cardinals had to beat the Washington Nationals who were playing on their own home turf of National Stadium just down the street from the US Capital building.  It was not easy.  The Cardinals went into the 9th inning down by two runs.  In the end, the Cardinals rallied to win 9-7.

The significance of the game for this blog focuses on an earlier stage, however.  Adam Wainwright, starting pitcher for the Cardinals and previous hero of St. Louis World Series victories as a closer, did not have a good game.  He gave up three runs in the 1st inning and was pulled from the game after giving up three more in the 3rd with only one out. Things looked bad. 

Then came a turning point and the Cardinals began to rally.

St. Louis manager Mike Matheny pointed to one little-noticed factor as the key to winning the game:  "There was a voice. It was a Carp. It was Waino [the above-mentioned Wainwright] getting back out there. He could have hung his head but he came back out there. That dugout was on fire." Wainwright stayed engaged.  Every kid who has an interest in baseball imagines being the starting pitcher in that final game, holding everything on the line for the team.  They do not imagine leaving the game after 2 and 1/3 innings after giving their team a six-run deficit.

What is our reaction to failure?  Of course it isn't OK to fail at important things in life.  However, we still have to strive to be successful at the next opportunity.  Unfortunately, the next opportunity sometimes doesn't come in this life.  Some things we do have permanent consequences.  Adam Wainwright was never getting back into Game 5 to show he could make up for his mistakes.  All he could do was to suck up his pride as the would-be hero and stay engaged with his team.  He chose to cheer on his teammates instead of wallowing in his personal failures.  In the end, he was able to celebrate along with everyone else because his humility reminded him of being part of the team.  Their victory was his victory. 

In the same way, we Christians, when we have the gift of humility, watch the struggles of Christ to right our wrongs.  He carries the cross because he alone is capable.  If we stay engaged in the process, leaving our pride aside, we too can share in Christ's victory.