Damar Hamlin - A Heart Stopping Event 1.6.23
Pastor Doug Sukhia
I was watching the game with thousands of other football fans on Monday night January 2nd. I was “into it” with typical interest [I live a mile from Josh Allen] and the usual emotions: excitement, anticipation, anxiety etc. But suddenly everything changed when Damar Hamlin slumped to the turf and medical teams began working on him. We eventually found out that his heart stopped and CPR was being administered. The players and people closest to him could see this and knew this was not a normal football injury-this was a matter of life and death. As that awareness spread to the crowd at the stadium and those watching on TV, a profound change occurred. A pall of darkness came over the stadium. The nervous excitement about the game vanished and was replaced by the dread of possibly witnessing a young man pass from life to death. People instinctively began to pray. Many with very few thoughts about God in their daily life began to appeal to that divine Being all suspect is really there - the One who can hear and answer prayer. The players, coaches and fans, who were totally invested in this game just minutes before were now solely focused on the 24 year old lying on the field fighting for his life. The game was eventually called off and people quietly went home wondering about what would happen. Would we hear the next day that he died at the hospital?
This event brings some profound and sobering thoughts to my mind. First, that everything is trivial compared to the issue of life and death. The game, the Super Bowl, the NFL... all is of very little importance compared to the loss of life. Damar’s possible passing away into the next world is more momentous than getting a football scholarship, playing in the NFL, or making millions of dollars. Jesus compared earthly things to eternal matters with these words ...“What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? [ Mark 8:36 ] Our mortality compels us to consider our destiny after death, our sins and God’s judgment. Jesus taught that there is an existence of the soul beyond death and our soul can be “lost”. Therefore He appealed to people to repent of their sins and trust in Him and His work. When Damar was in that tenuous place between here and hereafter, people were gripped by the critical nature of the moment.
This event, where suddenly the entire focus was on a single young man reminds me of the attracting power of the “young man” Jesus. His miraculous life and ministry, his profound teaching, his horrendous death and glorious resurrection have made him the central figure of all history [BC-AD]. His death especially is a history stopping event. I think of the 3 hours of darkness, the splitting of the temple curtain, the earth quake, the bodies coming to life... As this spectacular game suddenly came to a halt, so the light of the world goes out, history is hushed as He cries out “My God, My God why have you forsaken me” [Mt 27:46] and after six hours on the cross he declares “It is finished” [ Jn 19:30].
The first words of Damar in the hospital when he woke were “who won the game? One of his doctors wryly replied “You won the game of life”. I would add “... but just for now”. Like all of us, Damar will eventually lose to that grim and relentless opponent death. The only way to ultimately win this game is to be connected by faith to the ultimate Victor-the Lord Jesus Christ! All who repent of their sins and trust in him will live and rise with him. He declared: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" [John 11:25]. After saying this he raised to life a man who was dead for four days just by calling his name “...Lazarus come forth”.
In a sense, all of us are already dead in sin. Only God can save us by grace through faith in His Son Jesus.
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ...But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus... Eph 2:1-6