We are hosting a Gateway Team from Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. They arrived on Friday and first thing the next morning, we headed off on their Tourist Day. First stop was the Basilica of the Virgin Guadalupe. In the large plaza in front of this famous church, our driver, Jorge, asked me for a pen and paper. He was very serious and had a sense of urgency in his tone of voice. Lloyd had a pen in his pocket but we didn't have any paper. Jorge quickly set off to find some. I began to wonder of something was wrong with Jorge's van but he left before I could ask.
The team heard the story of Juan Diego and the Virgin Guadalupe. We climbed the various stairways up the small mountain behind the large basilica to visit the smaller original basilica at the top. As the team enjoyed the magnificent view of downtown Mexico City (top photo), the "pen and paper panic" was solved. A famous soccer player, Leandro Augusto, happened to be visiting the Basilica and Jorge had recognized him and wanted his autograph. Jorge was delighted and the rest of us joined in. Leandro Augusto is a Brazilean player on one of the large university club teams in Mexico City, the Pumas. He is apparently a very versatile player and has a surprisingly strong left foot kick though he is right-handed. The Mexican girls find his blonde hair particularly attractive.
Now, had Leandro Augusto been a famous CFL football player or an NHL hockey player, our reaction would have been equal to Jorge's. Instead, we only stopped him for about 5 minutes, had a quiet group photo, and scrounged up a Sharpie marker for an autograph on the Pumas jersey that Emma happened to be wearing. Being way up the mountain, not many Mexicans were around to begin mobbing him and it was all very subtle. The "con cariño" before his signature means "with affection." Even though Jorge's favorite sport is American football, I bet you can find him in the group picture purely by his beaming smile.
The whole experience reminded me that while many people are mistakenly worshipping the Virgin Guadalupe instead of the true living God, others are drawn into a worship of sports or gifted athletes. The worship of sports or sports figures is something we are familiar with while the worship of the Virgin Guadalupe is foreign to us. We don't get a bit excited about the Virgin Guadalupe and wonder what all the fuss is about. Different cultures, different temptations. Our passions can led us to worship a variety of false gods and this has eternal consequences.
Isaiah 45:18- 23 (NIV) For this is what the LORD says— he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited— he says: "I am the LORD, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob's descendants, 'Seek me in vain.' I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right. "Gather together and come; assemble, you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood, who pray to gods that cannot save. Declare what is to be, present it— let them take counsel together. Who foretold this long ago, who declared it from the distant past? Was it not I, the LORD ? And there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me. "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.
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