Kneeling in the End Zone Game of the Week

• Game: Texas Rangers at San Francisco Giants, Major League World Series, Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. CST


• Synopsis: Prior to Friday night, the Texas Rangers were the oldest Major League team never to have played in a World Series. The Rangers' National League foe in the Fall Classic, the San Francisco Giants, have not won a title since moving to California in 1958. (The Giants won five World Series in New York.) Neither the Texas Rangers nor the San Francisco Giants have ever been World Series champions. That will change in less than two weeks. For the first time since the Anaheim Angels won in 2002, Major League Baseball will have a new champion.
  
  
• Commentary: New is exciting. When a new team wins a championship, struggling franchises that have never won a title (e.g. the Mariners) or haven't won in a really long time (e.g. the Cubs) get a glimpse and a reminder of what is possible. Scripture frequently reminds us that God is in the business of doing new things. Isaiah 42:9 says, "See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them"; in Jeremiah 31:31-34, amid the siege of Jerusalem, God promises to make a new covenant with the people of Judah; through Christ, God became present and demonstrated God's love and mercy in extraordinary new ways. And the Bible's final book reaches a climax with God "making all things new" (Revelation 21:5).
  
  Much as either the Giants or Rangers will show baseball fans something new, we can give people a glimpse of the new things God is doing. Through relationships grounded in love and sacrifice and acts of mercy and justice, we can show others what God's new world looks like.