From “Muck” to MVP

Santonio Holmes is this year’s Super Bowl MVP. With his five-time Super Bowl-winning Pittsburgh Steelers trailing the Arizona Cardinals 23-20 with only 35 seconds left, Holmes was thrust into the game by trusting coaches and the high expectations of his teammates. And Holmes did it.

In the right corner of the end zone, with three defenders closing in, Holmes leaped high into the air, gathered in another of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s incredible passes, tucked the ball away, landed inbounds with tiptoe maneuvers, and fell out of bounds controlling the ball, insuring the Steelers’ narrow margin of victory 27-23.

Holmes’ background reveals moral failures contrasting sharply with his Super Bowl breakthrough. He sold drugs on the street growing up in rural Belle Glade, Florida where the black soil is called "muck." Last fall, he was suspended briefly for drug possession. But brilliant athleticism and the lure of decent sport brought Holmes to the Super Bowl, to team victory and athletic immortality in football’s most famous game. He matched the stunning feat of the ’08 Super Bowl when the New York Giants’ Plaxico Burress snared the winning pass also with exactly 35 seconds left.

Athletic references are sprinkled throughout the New Testament. The Apostle Paul spoke of winning the prize in 1 Cor. 9:24-25: "Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown." He added in Philippians 3:14, "I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

Hebrews 12:1-2 captures the race in the spiritual arena. "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of these athletic references is that the worst of candidates can become the best of competitors. Paul notes that he was the worst of sinners but was graciously placed in meaningful and effective Christian service. "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life." (1 Timothy 1:15-17)

Older hymns caught this transformational theme. Charles Gabriel wrote,

From sinking sand He lifted me,
With tender hand He lifted me;
From shades of night to planes of light,
O praise His name, He lifted me!

In her hymn "He Ransomed Me," Julia Johnson penned,

There’s a sweet and blessed story
Of the Christ who came from glory,
Just to rescue me from sin and misery;
He in loving-kindness sought me,And from sin and shame hath brought me,
Hallelujah! Jesus ransomed me.

Hallelujah! what a Savior,
Who can take a poor, lost sinner,
Lift him from the miry clay and set me free!
I will ever tell the story,
Shouting glory, glory, glory,
Hallelujah! Jesus lifted me.

The athletic pattern of Santonio Holmes going from the pits to the heights is long predated by the biblical pattern of the grace of God through Christ, where hopelessly lost and wayward sinners may be transformed into gloriously saved and honorable servants. God’s biblical Hall of Fame is found in Hebrews 11 where previous failures are listed among the spiritual victors. It was all through faith in the God who has unlimited power of transformational grace.

Dave Virkler