Have you filled out your brackets?

It’s the most wonderful time of the year- March Maddness! Have you filled out your brackets yet? What someone does with the brackets can illustrate different ideas about justification.

Some people I’ve talked to are very timid in how they fill out their brackets. They are afraid of making a mistake and being wrong. This is like the Christian who is scared of doing anything wrong because they are not confident in their justification by faith in Christ.

Other people (like me) put their team to win the whole thing every year- no matter what their chances. Now, I would tell you that Kansas usually has a very good chance to win the whole thing every year, but that hasn’t happened since 1988- and you could call me to task for justifying my choices. When people like us put our favorites to win, we are seeking justification for being a fan over all those years. It’s like we are waiting for years to say, “See, I was right! We are the best team in the nation.” Sometimes we are so despirate for righteousness we will do this in other areas of life- holding onto a wrong for years in the hope that we will be able to tell someone, “I told you so.” This is not real righteousness or justification- the feeling of vindicaiton will only last a little while. What we really need is Christ’s righteousness and justification to satisfy us and free us from wanting to say, “I told you so.”

Some people defend their bracket choices to the extreme- even after their choice has lost. They might say that the other team won by a “fluke” or might revel in the other team going farther in the tournament than anyone expected. This betays our need for justification. No one wants to be wrong- so we will find any way to prove ourselves right. Meanwhile, we don’t need to do this because those of us who have called upon Jesus in faith have been given righteousness through our justificiaton by Christ.

Then there’s always the Cinderella teams- the ones everyone roots for but no one wants to beat their own team. I think we root for the underdogs because we all empathize with them. We are all weak and underrated compared to the world and we are hoping for someone to prove that we can win too. It’s almost as if the Cinderella teams justify our hope that we are more than other people think. That is what Christ can do for us- but beyond basketball season. Jesus died for us and was resurrected from the dead to vindicate us as someone worth so much that he would pay for us with his life.