The [Chiefs] Kingdom Rejoices

Patrick Mahomes dropped back and drifted to his left.
Nowhere to go that way.
An edge rusher was coming around the end.

He took a few hard steps back to the right, eyes downfield. A linebacker made a late blitz, untouched through the offensive line. Somewhere in the middle of all that, Pat (I think we are on a shortened, first name basis) saw that Sammy Watkins had broken free almost 50 yards downfield. Without hesitation, he cocked back that magical arm that is half-human, half-cannon and unleashed a high-arcing pass through the fourteen-degree, January air. Sammy (also on first name terms with him) caught it and sprinted into the end zone.

Pandemonium in the stadium.
I mean total chaos of the best kind.
Grown men hugging.
The woman behind me standing in stunned silence, tears of joy streaming down her face.
The middle school-aged boy in front of me high-fived everyone more than once.
To no one in particular, I was repeatedly saying, “We’re going to the Super Bowl! We’re going to the Super Bowl.”

There were seven and a half minutes to go in the game, but it was over. 50 years of waiting, hoping, wishing, realized for a stadium full of people, a city full of fans, a franchise full of players, coaches, and all manner of employees. Decades of agony gone the moment Sammy Watkins stepped across the goal line.

Some other stuff happened after that. The Tennessee Titans scored again. They tried an onside kick. I think they got the ball back another time. None of it mattered. The celebration was on and nothing was going to stop it.

The moment had been slowly building since the end of the first half.
Down early, the Chiefs roared back.
When they took the lead, there was a quiet, cautious, optimistic understanding that we were not giving up the lead again.
I mean, Patrick Mahomes scored a touchdown from this predicament:

Go ahead and put this 27 yard run on Patrick Mahomes’s Hall of Fame highlight reel.

Confetti shot out of canons down on the field, lifting up into the slowly darkening, evening sky and raining down into the stands.
I grabbed a few pieces to take with me. They are still in my coat pocket.
Clark Hunt received the trophy with his father’s name on it.
We listened and cheered as Clark Hunt, Norma Hunt, Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reed, and Travis Kelce spoke with Jim Nantz during the trophy presentation ceremony.
Cheerleaders and players made snow angels in the confetti on the field.

The entire game was magical. I could write and talk about it for hours. If you are reading from Kansas City, you do not need me to do that, though. You watched it. You may have been there. If you did not watch it, then you have already heard people talk about it more than you were interested in to begin with.

I want to tell a different story, to make a different point.

I do want to type these words, though, because it is fun to type them every single time: The Kansas City Chiefs are headed to the Super Bowl. Whew. That feels good.

Onward.

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I was invited to the game by a friend. We went to high school together, went separate ways during college and kind of lost touch, but thankfully life has brought us back together in the last couple years. He and his family have had season tickets for years. 25 season, actually. On the way out of the stadium as we tried to grasp the reality of what we had just witnessed, my friend told me that he could only remember missing a handful of games growing up.

Games in the cold.
Games in the snow or rain.
Games when the Chiefs were awful.
Games we lost in the playoffs when we should have won.
Games where the Chiefs Chief’d in ways that caused everyone to ask the question, “Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?”

They were there for all of them, sometimes cheerfully, sometimes in that special kind of agony that only sports can produce.

And now here they were, seeing the Chiefs do what had alluded the franchise for 50 years. They watched in person as Pat Mahomes, Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce, Sammy Watkins, Mecole Hardman, Tyrann Mathieu, Chris Jones, Frank Clark, Andy Reed and the rest of the crew took a step that 50 groups before them had been unable to take.

There were tears in his dad’s eyes.
They took photos with each other from the stands.
From the seats they have sat in for 25 seasons, dreaming of this moment.
Father and sons, basking in the joy that they had long awaited.
Brothers savoring the ecstasy that made them forget all the pain of years past.
Well, maybe not that. Maybe it is more accurate to say that they were enjoying the ecstasy that was built because of the pain of years past.
Either way, their sports-fans’ hearts were grasping what they had long hoped for.

I got out of the way. Sure, they had invited me to be there. The offer was incredibly gracious. Someone in the normal group was unable to go and for whatever reason they thought to invite me. The biggest moment for the franchise in 50 years and I was in the stadium thanks to their generosity.

But in this moment, they did not want Tim Fritson in the photos. They did not say that. They did not have to. There was nothing rude about it. I just knew. This moment was one they had waited for for years. This was a moment that only those who had hoped, wished, and longed for from inside the stadium could truly appreciate. Sure, the rest of us were having a great time, but the longtime ticket holders were having a totally different experience. A deeper emotional experience.

I made myself small, ducked out of the photos, just watched.

I will be completely honest with you: I teared up watching them celebrate together. Every once in a while my friend would turn to me and give me a high five. We would exclaim that we could not believe this was finally happening. I made it brief and then let him get back to celebrating with his dad and his older brother.

It was a special moment for our city.
It was a special moment for this family.
The same thing was playing out throughout the stadium.
As weird as it felt to stand there and watch them savor it, I loved being able to do so.

Then the pastor got taken to church.

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My friend hit me with this bomb on the way out of the stadium:

““This is awesome. We’ve waited a long time. Imagine how much better it is going to be when we finally step into the presence of the Lord in heaven.””

I promise not to beleaguer the point, but he is not wrong.

All of the hoping.
All of the waiting.
All of the longing.
All of the pain here in this broken world.

All of it is leading up to the glorious moment when we stand before the God of the universe and see Him in all of His unveiled, unrivaled, undiminished glory. Let’s think about it together for just a minute and then you can go back to watching highlights from Sunday.

We will use 1 Peter 1:3-12.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

Sisters and brothers, that moment of inexpressible joy is waiting for you. Imperishable, undefiled, unfading. His great mercy has paved the way for it. He is keeping it for us in heaven. It is waiting there. For us.

You are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. You rejoice in this, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials so that the proven character of your faith — more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire — may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him; though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

The pain we experience here in this world is not merely going to be forgotten in that moment, though God will certainly wipe away the tears forevermore. The pain, trials, and anguish of this life are actually helping to build both the anticipation of that moment and the fullness of joy and glory that we will experience in that moment. Beyond that, we are being guarded in the midst of the pain. Chew on that for a few minutes.

And now catch this: angels, who know nothing of the hurt and agony of the sin in this world, actually long to look into the splendor of the whole thing.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who prophesied about the grace that would come to you, searched and carefully investigated. They inquired into what time or what circumstances the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating when he testified in advance to the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you. These things have now been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven — angels long to catch a glimpse of these things.

They will stand there and watch as we walk into that glorious moment before the throne of God, marveling at the mystery and wonder of salvation.

While we experience a joy that nothing in this world can ever match, the angels will look on. They are going to rejoice in that moment. But I also think they will know that they cannot appreciate it in the same way that we will. They will not quite be able to grasp the joy of standing redeemed in the Lord’s presence because they have not experienced the pain of life in a broken world. They have no need for saving grace. Redemption is foreign to them, and so too will be the unthinkable joy of standing in the presence of a holy God having been completely forgiven and made righteous thanks to the blood of Jesus.

Maybe they will make themselves small.
Shrink back a little bit.
Kind of like I did in section 345 of Arrowhead stadium on Sunday.

While Chiefs Kingdom rejoiced, I felt fortunate, elated, through-the-roof excited to be there. More than that, I felt lucky to have the chance to see the depth of emotion that my friend and his family were experiencing. They felt it more deeply than I did. I am confident of that.

But on the way out of the stadium, he was right.

“This is awesome. We’ve waited a long time. Imagine how much better it is going to be when we finally step into the presence of the Lord in heaven.”

The joy will be inexpressible.
The angels will not quite comprehend it.
But the Kingdom will rejoice.