Lux Lucet

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick takes a knee during the pre-game singing of the national anthem. 

It all began quietly enough. The photo that started it all, one tweeted out by Jennifer Lee Chan of Niners Nation, wasn’t even originally about Colin Kaepernick. In fact, you have to look pretty closely at the photo even to see the then San Francisco 49ers quarterback sitting by himself on the bench during the pre-game ceremonies on August, 26, 2016.

After the game in an interview with NFL.com’s Steve Wyche, Kaepernick explained the reasoning behind his protest. He said,

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.

According to Mike Garafolo of the NFL network, this was not the first time Kaepernick had protested during the national anthem, it’s just that no one had noticed it before.

On August 28, Kaepernick stated that he would continue his protest until he felt that the flag represented what it was supposed to represent and the country represented people the way it’s supposed to represent them.

From there, it became almost a commonplace to see football players, not just in the NFL but even those on the high school and college level, take a knee during the pre-game singing of the Star-Spangled Banner.

The protest movement, having simmered for over a year, was given new life with Donald Trump’s comments at a rally in Alabama last week, saying players who knelt during the national anthem should be fired.

This prompted angry reactions from many NFL players as well as from players in other sports. Remarkably, the uproar this past week following Trump’s comments has been so loud that it even managed to drive North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s threats of nuclear war from the headlines.

Such an explosive story deserves at least some commentary. So here are a few thoughts of my own.

Who’s Dissing Whom?

Following Trump’s comments critical of the NFL’s handling of the protest movement, the league’s commissioner Roger Goodell released a statement accusing the president of showing “and unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL.” This strikes at least one author as a case of the pot calling the kettle black. After all, it has been the NFL that has permitted a protest movement perceived by many Americans, a number of whom are also football fans, as being highly disrespectful of the flag and of the country.

But lost in all the dust up of who’s dissing whom is the issue of the Lord’s Day. You see, at one time playing sports and Sunday was not only considered sinful, but it was even illegal. This all began to change in the early 20th century. Cincinnati, St. Louis and Chicago were the first big cities to permit Sunday baseball in 1902. Other cities followed over the ensuing decades.

Pennsylvania, on the other hand, maintained a state-wide ban on Sunday sports until 1933. Dating from 1794, this law passed by the Pennsylvania state legislature was intended as, “an Act for the prevention of vice and immorality, and of unlawful gaming, and to restrain disorderly sports and dissipation.”

Many people today, even those who are Christians, are shocked at the thought that a state legislature would pass such a law. “Isn’t that just pharisaical legalism?,” many will ask. “We live under grace, not under the law,” others will add. Still others would hold that such laws are nothing but old fashioned prudishness, beyond which we thankfully all have moved.

But the principal of resting one day in seven to worship the Lord is not some ceremonial or judicial law from the Old Testament abrogated by the New Covenant. Rather, the Sabbath – the term Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word for rest – was instituted during creation week, when God “rested from all his work which he had made.” The Sabbath was further emphasized when it was included by God in the Ten Commandments – what is call the moral law – where God’s people are instructed to “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

In the Christian era, the Sabbath was changed, not by a decree of Constantine as is commonly believed, but by the practice of the risen Christ, who met with his people on the first day of the week, see Matthew 28:1, John 20:26, and the practice of the New Testament Church, see Acts 20:7.

The biblical commandment to set aside the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath was given voice in the Westminster Confession of Faith which states it this way,

As it is the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in His Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, He hath particularly appointed one day in seven, for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him: which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which, in Scripture, is called the Lord’s Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath (Chapter XXI.7).

Perhaps the real issue in the “take a knee” controversy is not the actual disrespect shown by Kaepernick and his imitators to the American flag and to the American nation which it represents, or the imagined disrespect Roger Goodell believes was shown to the mighty NFL, but the far more serious disrespect we Americans in general, and the NFL in particular, show to the Lord by the way we profane his day with “disorderly sports and dissipation.”

Those who have seen Chariots of Fire will recall that one of the central dramatic points of that movie turned on Olympic runner Eric Liddell’s refusal to run on Sunday, even if it meant forgoing an opportunity to win a gold medal in his best event. Liddell stood his ground and was rewarded with an opportunity to run in another race, one that did not require him to run on Sunday. To everyone’s surprise, not only did he go on to win a gold medal, but did so in world record time. But while Liddell’s world record was eclipsed long ago, his faithfulness and courage has stood the test of time.

Could it be that one of God’s purposes in causing Kaepernick’s antics and the ensuing dust up is to remind offended American Christians of their responsibilities on the Lord’s Day, to remind them that their god is not sports, to remind them that the Fourth Commandment is still in effect?

Maybe it’s time for we Christians took a knee, not in protest, but in obedience to the Law of God.