“We are,…..PENN STATE!” This is the mantra used over and over again at Penn State football games, pep rallies, alumni events, and, occasionally, spontaneously on campus. It once meant something quite different than it does today. It was spoken to express the bond one felt with the school, fellow students, alumni, and, yes, the football program, especially its coach, Joe Paterno. As you may know I am an alumnus of Penn State. I once proudly spoke those four words with a broad smile and happy heart. Now the heart is disheartened and the smile gone. Like many (most?) alumni I too have my own personal story of encounter with the famed coach who always seemed to have time for any student that crossed his path. He was gracious, interested, and real. It is always especially difficult when someone admired so much disappoints so deeply.
One can only wonder about the terrible scandal at Penn State. It was a football program known for academic excellence, sportsmanship, clean recruiting and fair play. The critics were many for their refusal to run up the score to advance in the ranking. Today’s focus on the scandal and the program have not revealed it to be anything other than it appeared in these areas. However it failed tragically in a much deeper level. Overall it was still about winning. It was still about the institution. How can someone like Joe Paterno, so grand and ethical almost to the point of obsession in some areas be so corrupt in yet another?
Welcome to the world! We live in a place and are part of a species where contradiction seems the rule. One of the world’s great cultures produces the holocaust. A nation known for liberty and freedom spends nearly its first one hundred years enslaving one race while subduing and working to control and possibly exterminate yet another. We live in a world where evil happens. We are a people who are all subject to evil’s taunts and temptations. This is not to excuse anyone. It is to describe the situation in which we live. It is to describe you and me. We are a part of this world and fallen humanity. Headlines scream daily about some evil somewhere. And you and I sometimes unwittingly, sometimes knowingly participate in some of the world’s ills. We are very much a part of fallen humanity. And there is no way out.
We need someone. We need someone to come. Advent is here. it reminds us there is someone who comes and does more than simply enter this world. This one comes to be a part of it. This one comes to be a part of its joy and its misery. This one comes to embrace us. Our sin does not keep this one away. In fact, it would seem to make him more eager to come and be with us. This one comes above all to redeem and bring new life to places of death.