go the swans!

last night we got to go to an afl game. now, on the surface afl (australian football league) seems like rugby. but apparently it's not. i guess the ball is a little bit longer or something and there are some slightly different rules. if you call it rugby in front of an aussie you will get at least 5 minutes worth of lecturing on the differences. basically, this is how it works: there are 3 different things--afl, rugby league, and rugby union (also they will say football, or soccer, which isn't even the same sport so i don't know why they include it in there). in new south whales (where sydney is), they call afl aerial ping pong because apparently it's not as hardcore as the others. but in victoria it is the big one, and everyone likes it more. if you refer to "footie," you could be referring either rugby league or afl (depending on where you are or where you're from. in victoria afl is footie, but in sydney it's rugby league). rugby union is just "rugby." and gridiron is american football. it's all very confusing... but i think i'm getting the hang of it.

anyway... it was heaps of fun. here are some pictures from the game:

esther, me, and elle in front of the stadium. check out the red and white... we have team spirit :)

so... we were going for the sydney swans (i know... very intimidating mascot). we didn't have any swans gear so we drew some on our face. turns out people don't really do that here... haha.

haha... we were cheering hardcore. actually, at this point we were just practicing. hehe

some things you should notice in this picture: 1-look at the swans' awesome socks! 2-look how freakin short those shorts are! 3-they are wearing NO protection. and i mean NONE. rumour has it they aren't even allowed to wear underwear.

i would have to say that rugby (my bad... afl) might be my new favorite sport to watch. it never really stops and they are hardcore and all over the place. it's a toss up between this and soccer... but i will say that afl players are in the best shape of any athletes i've ever seen. hands down.

now i have something more serious to write about...

last wednesday mark driscoll from mars hill church in seattle was here for this thing called "burn your plastic jesus," which i really wanted to go to but didn't really realize that it was going on until the last minute and it was sold out. actually some kids in one of my classes had an extra ticket, but scott just did a series that seems like the exact same thing at flatirons which i listened to online, so brittany went instead. anyways... today i found out that he was gonna be speaking at this little baptist church that some of the asc'ers go to, so i decided to go check it out. i get kinda cynical about famous pastors, so i didn't really have high expectations, but i went anyway. i'm so glad i did. seriously, there is a reason he's so well-known. we went early because even though it was kept pretty much on the DL that he was gonna be there, they expected a lot of people. this church was super tiny, so they had us all cram on the pews. i ended up in the front row (literally directly in front of him. like 3 feet away. like spit zone close. it was somewhat uncomfortable, but no one else wanted to sit there so a couple of the other girls and i took one for the team.) anyways... he was freakin awesome. i guess usually he's really funny and energetic, but the topic tonight was pretty serious, plus i think he was tired (he's doing like 30 talks in 11 days or something crazy like that). but he was still good.

he talked about the doctrine of propitiation. sounds super lame and boring, but it was actually one of the best sermons i've ever heard. i took like 4 pages of notes, but i'll try to make this short. basically, it was about sin and how God is holy, and we are not, so we are basically His enemies. people always focus on God's love, but they ignore His wrath and the fact that it is because He loves us that He gets angry when we sin against Him. sin breaks relationships, and because of our sinful nature our relationship with Him is flawed, and He hates sin for that. but just because God is capable of being angry doesn't mean that He just flies off and shows His wrath. God is perfect, and therefore His anger is perfect. His anger is slow to come and it's often delayed. it can be turned away, like it has been in all kinds of Bible stories. also God's wrath is shown in 2 ways: active and passive. most people think of the active side, like Him smiting people and stuff, but the passive side is what happens more. that's when He hands us over to sin and lets us do what we want. that's when stuff gets really screwed up, and that's when people try to blame God for their own decisions. so it all sounds angry and crappy, but that's where the doctrine of propitiation comes in. it basically means this: we are all guilty sinners, and God's wrath is on all of us, which we deserve. but He sent Jesus to become our sin and God poured out all His wrath on Jesus so that we can live. it's pretty much the basic gospel message, but it's so much deeper than just that. he talked about exactly what the crucifixion looked like and what it meant. it was seriously so powerful. i'm still just overwhelmed and in awe of what a huge deal it is!

one thing that he talked about that really made me think and that i want to look at more is the whole "love the sinner, hate the sin" thing. do you know where that phrase came from? Ghandi! that is not actually biblical at all... it's from a hindu man (i'm not dissing ghandi... i'm just saying he was not so much a theologian). the bible actually mentions multiple times that God hates sinners. so where is the line between us being sinners that God hates and being sinners saved by grace because He loves us? i wish that i could have talked to mark driscoll and picked his brain about that, but i'm definitely gonna look into it more. anyways... it was pretty great. i'm glad that i went :)