Did you root for Michael Vick last night? It’s ok. You can admit it. Even dog lovers are warming up to the guy.
There's not a QB in the league I like to watch more than Michael Vick, and last night was as much fun as this pseudo-sometimes sports fan has ever had watching two teams I don’t care about. And though the 3 hour praise-fest was a little gratuitous (it put in mind network anchors gone giddy over Obama in ‘08), I found myself joining in on the superlative heaping.
Which got me thinking: if Vick hadn't been brought so ignominiously low two years ago, would the announcers—would I—have such enthusiasm for him now? The answer is easy—no way. In fact, it’s the brought low in his story that makes him so much fun to root for. More than that, it’s the fact that he put himself there that makes it work.
We may love the rags-to-riches, by-the-bootstraps story because we love the thought of exaltation, of someone being lifted up out of circumstances that would otherwise destroy. But there’s more than mere exaltation in Vick’s story. It’s precisely the fact that he caused those circumstances, that he did something reprehensible, that he made us all think he was a low-life scrub good for nothing but writing off that makes his story so compelling. There’s no story here without the crime. There’s no redemption without the guilty verdict. Of course we need other things—contrition, confession, a demonstrable change in direction—but it’s the guilt that makes a performance like last night’s such a story.
His comeback is a kind of redemption, and we long for redemption because we all know the original redemption story. At least deep down, a part of us knows it because the Law written on our hearts testifies to it. Christ's redemption of his people, culminating in his return, is the original version of this story. All else is shadow. And when we see its shadow—publicly on football fields, privately when mercy is given—we hear within ourselves, whether we know Christ or not, a corresponding and compelling ring. It reminds us that there’s another very old, but very true, redemption story.
To put it simply, you root for Michael Vick because Jesus is coming back for his people.
That was an incredible game. Nice post, man.
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