The Comeback Kid
The 49ers trailed 38-14 with 4 minutes left in the third quarter, but they scored 25 straight points on two TD passes and a scoring run.
The Bills scored a 41-38 victory over the Houston Oilers on Jan. 3, 1993, a game they had trailed 35-3 in the third quarter.
John Elway, former quarterback for the Denver Broncos was known as the “comeback kid” because of the many times he brought his team from seemingly insurmountable odds to victory.
Discus thrower Al Oerter (who won Olympic gold medals in 1956, 1960, 1964, and 1968) retired for awhile and then returned to the sport in 1976. In 1980 he was throwing farther than he had in 1968.
Paul Azinger, golf. The 1993 PGA champion missed the 1994 campaign with cancer in his right shoulder. He recovered after a missing a full year and resumed competing.
Jim Morris was a 35-year-old high school chemistry teacher in 1999. As a young man, he was a pitcher in the minors - but his dreams of Major League Baseball were ended by an injury that required major surgery.
Years later, coaching the school team in his hometown of Big Lake, Texas, Morris discovered by a fluke that he could still throw fast balls. So he makes a deal with his team: If they make it to the state finals, he’ll try out for the majors.
The squad delivers - and Morris goes to the Texas camp of the Tampa Devil Rays’. There, he amazes everyone, even himself, by throwing pitches at 98 mph. In a few months, he’s pitching in the big leagues.
Andres Galarraga’s return from cancer to the 2000 All-Star Game. Tampa Bay’s Nick Bierbrodt bouncing back from a gunshot wound and control lapses to make the Devil Rays’ rotation.
Jennifer Capriati was a French Open semifinalist at 14; a broken-hearted victim of broken dreams by 18. She was accused of shoplifting; underwent psychiatric treatment; a drug arrest and a substance-abuse program.
Then a new century, a new Capriati. She won the Australian Open in 2001. She followed up with a victory at the French Open in June of that year, and then another Australian triumph in 2002.
In the spring of 1996, Lance Armstrong began to experience pain and swelling in his groin and attributed it to his six- to eight-hour days of cycling training. He did not seek medical advice until more than five months later when he started to get headaches and cough up blood.
Cancer had produced a dozen golf ball-sized tumors in his lungs and lesions on his brain. Given only a 50 percent chance of survival, since 1999, Lance has won four consecutive Tours de France, making him the only American to accomplish this feat.
Lis Hartel of Denmark won a silver medal in dressage equestrian in the 1952 Games eight years after losing full use of her legs when she contracted polio during pregnancy.
Karoly Takacs of Hungary was one of the world’s greatest pistol shooters and an Olympic favorite in 1938 until his right hand was blown off in a hand-grenade accident as he prepared to fight in World War II. The Olympics were canceled in 1940 and ’44 due to the war, allowing him to learn to shoot left-handed. That’s how he won Olympic gold in 1948.
When Ernie Irvan crashed his car during a NASCAR race at Michigan Speedway in August 1994, he was given a 10 percent chance of surviving. The odds were against him ever recovering from critical brain and lung injuries.
But less than one year later, in October 1995, Irvan not only entered a NASCAR race but finished a remarkable sixth. If Irvan did nothing more than finish out of the money as a NASCAR driver, his comeback would’ve been nothing short of miraculous. But he did much more than merely compete. He won two races in 1996.
All of these stories involve comebacks. Coming back and winning when they weren’t supposed to. Coming back against overwhelming odds to become champions.
That’s what happened on the first Easter morning. Jesus was dead. He’d been crucified, he had died, and he’d been put into a tomb a couple of days before. His family, friends, and disciples were overwhelmed with grief. The game was over. There was no time left on the clock. The other team, the Pharisees, the bad guys, had won. Game, set, match.
The disciple’s hearts were broken; they were in a state of shock; they felt like they’d been kicked in the chest. And on top of that, some of them were afraid. Their star player, their team leader had been crushed and eliminated from the game. They were in hiding, afraid that if they came out they’d get the same treatment. So they cowered in their homes, not knowing what to do.
The women, on the other hand, were loyal fans who weren’t afraid to fill the seats, even though the team may be going through a down time. They made straight for the tomb on Sunday morning. They were going to do for Jesus what they hadn’t had time to do on Friday. They were going to prepare his body properly. The game may be over and the team leader vanquished, but life must go on.
There are exceptions, but almost every team goes through some lean years where they, in a word, stink. They don’t have the talent and, more importantly, no leadership. Kind of like the 1971 NBA Championship series when Willis Reed, the NY Knick center, had a knee injury. The rest of the team floundered and was on the verge of losing to Wilt Chamberlain and the L.A. Lakers (which is what I was hoping for).
Then, in a dramatic comeback, Reed comes out to play. The Knicks are energized and go on to win the Championship. Now Jesus didn’t have a knee injury. HE’S DEAD! When you’re dead, you don’t just suck it up and play hurt! You don’t put a brace on and deal with the pain. Jesus was dead. There are no comebacks, no 9th inning or 4th quarter heroics when you’re dead. The disciples have no hope that their leader can come back and lead them to victory.
So all the followers are grieving. They’re depressed. They have lost all hope. We all know that 3 days is not enough time to get over your grief. Then the women who had gone to prepare the body come running up, breathless, to tell the disciples that the body was gone! Great! It’s not bad enough that the star player has been taken out of the game, he’s not even in the stadium.
On one occasion Michelangelo turned to his fellow artists and said with frustration in his voice, "Why do you keep filling gallery after gallery with endless pictures on the one theme of Christ in weakness, Christ on the cross, and most of all, Christ hanging dead?" he asked. "Why do you concentrate on the passing episode as if it were the last work, as if the curtain dropped down there on disaster and defeat? That dreadful scene lasted only a few hours. But to the unending eternity Christ is alive; Christ rules and reigns and triumphs!"
Later that day and throughout the next few days and weeks the hope returns. Christ is Risen! (response). Why, he must have been in the trainer’s room, getting prepared to make his big comeback and lead his team to victory! That’s why the disciples couldn’t find his body.
Good Friday was a dark and dreary day but now Sunday has come! The Lord has defeated death once and for all and He has come back to lead his team to victory. And his comeback, which we Christians refer to as the resurrection, is the greatest comeback of all time.
And while we’re here on this Easter Sunday and on the subject of the Christian comeback known as the resurrection, I’d like to let you know that our government, at some level, bureaucratic, if not theological, believes in the resurrection. In Greenville, SC, the Department of Social Services wrote to a welfare recipient: “Your food stamps will be stopped, effective immediately, because we have received notice that you passed away. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.”
I personally know of only one person who ever experienced those “change in circumstances”, and he didn’t live in South Carolina. So you can talk about your “comebacks” all you want. Your Lance Armstrongs, your Jennifer Capriatis, your Ernie Irvans, your Willis Reeds. It doesn’t matter! John Elway notwithstanding, I believe Jesus is the only true “comeback kid”.
The bones recalcified.
The joints ligamented.
The muscles retendoned.
The veins blood filled.
The heart restarted.
The nerves electrified.
The skin saturated.
And up from the grave He arose! (Brett Blair)
Hallelujah! Christ is Risen!
