Jackie Robinson: A True Sports Hero

A former Sunday school teacher of mine said that “if you can’t take it, you can’t make it.” Today we celebrate the legacy of #42 Jackie Robinson. He was the first black man to become a major league baseball player. He became such because he could take it. What he took is unfathomable to most people of today. And let’s not forget Larry Doby, the first black man to play in the American League. He went through the same experience.

Imagine going to work every day and dealing with hatred and venom openly spewed at you by co-workers, customers, competitors and everyone else you come across. And you are alone in being targeted like this. Cat calls, death threats and the like a daily occurrence. The same sickness that made his life miserable played out on Bloody Sunday nearly 10 years after he retired.

And what insanity is that? That which has always been a part of America. Too many in America since the beginning have had and continue to foment this infatuation with the genetic marker that denotes their race, the biologically challenged concept that’s always been a part of American life.

How sick is it to simply look at someone and loathe him/her at sight? I get looking at someone and liking them for no other reason than how they look. I am guilty as charged of that. This seems a natural response. But how is it you look at someone and despise them to the core? Maybe I’m the outlier here but it seems unnatural and unholy, to hate on sight and on sight alone.

To hate someone not having any real knowledge of their character, background or circumstance is inexcusable. Those that find themselves doing so need Jesus. And NOT the caricature heathen cultured Jesus image that so many in today’s phony cultural wars put forward but rather He of the Holy Scriptures.

Their obsession is such that it’s not merely familial or ancestry pride or a celebration of cultural significance but instead a belief of God given favor. And that being favor or privilege that belongs to one simply based upon race. However, we’re supposed to reform ourselves into the image of the biblical Jesus Christ as opposed to changing his image to suit us. For those who subject the Lord’s image for theirs breach the first commandment given that -“thou shall have no other gods before me.”-

As such, their racial pedigree is effectively their God. To give your race, skin color (or anything else for that matter) the reverence reserved for God is wrong. We have people here that idolize their genetic marker. This then is idolatry, and by default so many that want to identify as Christian are partaking in idolatry of the worse kind, self-worship. It is the enemy the devil who worships himself.

It was Jackie Robinson’s faith and Christ like character that provided him the right and tough enough stuff to face the hate he encountered. Likewise, the Christ like faith of one Branch Rickey, the Dodgers general manager stood out. Here was a white man in a world of which being white was equated with being right who challenged the status quo. Here was a man more in tuned to the Christ in him than to the white on him, demanded that America live up to her lofty language and apply it to this most American of sports.

The integration of baseball was a forerunner of the modern civil rights movement. This as many advances in our society is the fruit of Gospel ministry. When people of God practice authentic Christ Covenant behavior things get better for everyone. When we decide to minister outside the comfort zone of church and corrupt culture the world is made better.

Published in Word Courier Annals Jackie Robinson Day 2023

edit the article content or add new blocks...