Created to Play: Thoughts on Play, Sport, and the Christian Life

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creative, playful, extravagance. This is evident in both the creation itself and God’s interaction with it. The description of God’s creative activity in Ps 104, for instance, gives us a picture of not only God’s awesome power and wisdom, but his abundant playfulness in his creative work-- springs gushing, birds singing from among the branches, wine gladdening the heart, trees watered abundantly, all point <strong>to</strong> a fabulous display of lavish divine activity. In describing the immense and powerful sea, the greatest sea creature of all, Leviathan, is said <strong>to</strong> have been formed by God <strong>to</strong> “play in it” (Ps 104:26). This verse may even be implying that it is God who is at play with Leviathan in the seas he has created. 20 This seems <strong>to</strong> be the same idea we find in Job 41:5 where, <strong>to</strong> put Job in his place, God ironically asks him if he will play with the great Leviathan. “Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls? The point is, Job is obviously incapable of doing something God certainly can. The very creature that strikes terror in humans has a <strong>to</strong>y-like quality from God’s perspective. Also in Job, the mountains God made are portrayed as not only yielding food for Behemoth, but also as a place where “all the wild beasts play” (Job 40:20). God’s creative provision includes playgrounds for his inherently playful creatures. The overwhelming artistic variety we see in creation indicates that there is not only an intelligent designer behind it but also a playful artist. The sheer variety of tastes, colors, sounds, textures, and shapes in creation indicate anything but pure utilitarian motivation by its crea<strong>to</strong>r. God is both skillful architect and creative artist. God does nothing based in need (Acts 17:24-25; Ps 50:9-12; Job 4:11), so creation, like play, is “meaningful but not necessary.” 21 In creating and sustaining everything, and in accomplishing redemption, God’s pleasure and glory, are his primary motives (Isa 43:7; Matt 10:26; Lk 11:21; Eph 1: 5, 9, 11-12). Creation is God at play, “a play of his groundless and inscrutable wisdom. It is the real in which God displays his glory.” 22 Creation, and life itself, become a source of pleasure and delight for those who delight in the Crea<strong>to</strong>r and the work of his hands. We get glimpses of the playfulness of God in Christ in his teaching which often included verbal sparring with his opponents and at times his own disciples. Jesus’ parables frequently contain humorous exaggeration, (the hypocrites beam in his eye of Matt 7:5), word play (Peter’s new nickname, Matt 16:18), and irony (asking whether the people who went <strong>to</strong> see John the Baptist had gone out <strong>to</strong> see someone “in soft clothing,” Matt 112:8). 8
<strong>Play</strong> and the Coming Kingdom The most stirring images of play in the Bible occur in attempts <strong>to</strong> express the joy and freedom experienced in the coming Kingdom of God. The most vivid of these images is Zechariah 8:5: “And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. God gives his people a beautiful scene of the escha<strong>to</strong>n <strong>to</strong> look forward <strong>to</strong>; children playing with uninhibited, unhindered, freedom. We get a similar picture of the freedom <strong>to</strong> be found in the heavenly city in Isaiah 11:8-9; “The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” Fearless childlike play, no longer inhibited by the effects of sin and the curse is a key metaphor of Christ’s Kingdom. Similar images of playful celebration and “merrymaking” abound in other prophetic glimpses of what the New Jerusalem brings (cf. Jer 30:18–19; 31:4 , 13–14). One of the tenderest pictures of God’s deep care for his people is found in his promise of a res<strong>to</strong>red Jerusalem. He likens it <strong>to</strong> the care of a compassionate mother for a little baby which will provide the care a little baby receives from her compassionate mother. Speaking of the fulfilled covenant, Yahweh says of Jerusalem, "Behold, I will extend peace <strong>to</strong> her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees” (Isa 66:12). In the res<strong>to</strong>ration, God provides the security and freedom a child experiences while playfully dandled on her mother’s knee. These images call <strong>to</strong> mind Jesus holding up a child as the pro<strong>to</strong>type of the kind of person <strong>to</strong> whom belongs the Kingdom of God (Matt 19:14). Jesus calls his followers <strong>to</strong> an attitude of childlike dependence and trust in God, but this kind of trust invariably leads <strong>to</strong> childlike play as we see God’s fulfilled covenant promises. <strong>Play</strong>ful, spontaneous, exuberance sparked by God’s presence and blessing is vividly displayed in David’s joyful worship when the Ark of the Covenant was returned from the Philistines. David looks downright childlike as he celebrates the symbol of God’s abiding presence upon re-entering Jerusalem. “And David and all the house of Israel were making merry before the LORD, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals” (2 Sam 6:5). “And David danced before the LORD with all his might . . . 2 Sam 6:14). 9
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Created to Play: Thoughts on Play, Sport, and the Christian Life

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