I Wanna Be Like Wayne Gretzky

Philippians 2:1-11

Growing up as a kid in small town Canada, I played hockey.  Everyone did, or so it seemed, in my community.  We played in organized leagues at the local arena.  We played on frozen ponds during Christmas vacation.  We played on school yards with street hockey sticks in the summertime.  My brother and I even had a rink, or a much smaller version of it, set up in our basement so that we could play when it was raining outside.  I would strap camp sleeping mats around my legs as goalie pads, get my baseball glove and for my stick, I had a small tennis racquet.  We set a mattress against the wall and that was the goal that he had to score on.  It was crazy.  It was dangerous.  It was painful.  But man, was it fun.

We had our hockey heroes, but when I was in Jr. High, everyone’s hero was one player; Wayne Gretzky.  He was just coming into the NHL and playing for arguably the greatest hockey team ever, the Stanley Cup Champion Edmonton Oiler teams.  People were buying posters, jerseys, hockey sticks and loads of other stuff related to this boy wonder who could do things with a hockey puck that none of us could believe.  We would sit and wait for CBC on Saturday night to play the “Hockey Night in Canada” theme song hoping that it would be an Edmonton game.  We wanted to see what he would do.  We all wanted to be just like him.

We did actually.  We would mimic his moves.  We would practice his spins with the puck.  We’d try to shoot like him, skate like him, pass like him so that someday we might be just like Wayne.

But we’d hear stories about what he did to practice as a kid and get as good as he was.  His dad would litter the back yard ice rink with hockey sticks and Wayne would skate around and pick the puck up and bounce it on his stick while he skated.  There were miniscule targets that he would shoot at and pass to.  He would travel endless miles to games and do his school work in the car on the way to tournaments.  He would be outside in the backyard for hours on end, day after day, learning the moves that would make him a legend.

To be like my hero would take too much time, effort and energy.  I liked hockey, but not that much. 

My dreams of being like Wayne faded into my childhood.  Eventually, I quit hockey and now I watch my son long to be able to play like the stars that he sees on television.

To be like my hero would take too much. 

In Philippians 2, we hear about another hero, much greater than some hockey star.  We hear about Christ; the greatest servant, savior, messiah and human that has ever walked this earth.    Paul says this about Jesus;

“He made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…he humbled himself and become obedient to death – even death on a cross!”

Wow!  What a man!  Jesus is incredible in that he did all of this even though he was “in very nature God.  He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” 

Jesus is one with the father.  Yet, he left it all for us so that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father.”  Jesus gave up everything so that he might give us everything and bring his father glory.  Amazing.

But lost if you read too quickly is the line that opens this hymn of the early church.  It’s a little line that you might miss, but it has so much to say to us.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who….”

Let that sink in for a second.

Be like Jesus.  Here’s what he did, what he gave up, what he sacrificed, the whole thing.  Now be like him.

I couldn’t handle a couple extra hours of hockey practice.  How can I do that?

You can’t….on your own.  You and I aren’t capable enough to live even a moment like Jesus does in our own strength. 

Jump a verse or two down.  “It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

You and I can’t do it, but God can do it in us, through the Spirit, because of what Jesus did for us.

That means that we don’t work harder for God, it means we depend on him more.  It means we don’t do more for the kingdom, we allow God to use us in whatever way he plans to.  It means we don’t read more, memorize more, sing louder, jump higher, etc, it means that we love God and live lives of thankfulness because of the hope we’ve been given through the grace of Jesus Christ.

I’ll never be Wayne Gretzky.  My ankles are too weak and my knees are too shot, but I can be more like my real hero; Jesus Christ.  I won’t be like him because of how hard I try nor because of what I’ve done, but because of what Christ already did and what he’s still doing in me.