Super Bowl Prediction LVIII

 

With about 60 total minutes of total NFL watch time this season, and aware of of the two remaining teams and their general storylines, I am ready to make my Super Bowl prediciton.

For context, when I predicted the remaining playoff rounds, I was wrong in all but one of my Divisional round predictions and had the Packers vs Texans I believe in the Super Bowl. So this is bound to be 100% accurate.

Mahomes seems to possess an unseen magic (maybe with the help of the refs) when it comes to playoff time, a la LeBron James. He finds a way to make it happen. The 49ers, on the other hand, are a really solid team all around with a great running back and offensive system.

I'm picking the Chiefs, unfortunately. I don't really care who wins - probably whoever happens to be behind at any given time. Go Browns.

Prediction: 27 - 17 Chiefs

Resistance

The heart of man is blackened, corrupted, and deathly sick. It will not cease spewing forth shadow and darkness until it finally ceases its fleeting beat. Be the years seventy or eighty, the new heart continues at war against the old - and finds itself unable to completely snuff it out. Not that He cannot, but that he has appointed a time for this final victory to take place - and though it is not yet, it will be soon. This battle is waged with a single weapon, a two edged sword of infinite strength and death-breaking light. Wielded in prayer and preaching, in water and promise, in flesh and blood, it holds the death throes of death at bay until its already ancient defeat is made visible upon the broken earth. Meanwhile, the prince of shadow bids warring hearts to sheathe their blades and kneel in fealty to his glorious and blissful shadow - the lie that hides the lake of fire. We turn back to the Lord, daily and often, clinging again to the hilt as if life itself hinges upon this singular weapon: the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And yet in our sick insanity, ofttimes we lay it down yet again. Fool! Cling to it tightly, and most especially when your heart's whisper most sincerely bids you to lay it down, but for a soft and fleeting moment. Stay awake.

Psalm 130

Sõnasisu Igavesti

The Blade

The Blade

The strife is old, the battle long -

The sword before, the blade a song.

To leave it there upon the earth

Is Lucifer's unended birth,

But lo, to raise it from its sleep,

To hone the blade, forsake the sheath,

Is life and hope and victory.

For here the captive soul is free.

NFL Remaining Playoff Predictions

 

The 2024 playoffs are well underway! Before the season, I predicted that the Browns would win in the first round. They did make the first round, but were beaten soundly by the Texans. I'm impressed they made it this far with a 4th-string QB and without Nick Chubb. But now, the remaining bracket looks like this:

Texans vs Ravens
                                        AFC Championship Game
Chiefs vs Bills

                                                                        Super Bowl

Packers vs 49ers
                                        NFC Championship Game

Buccaneers vs Lions

Here are my predictions for each remaining game on the NFL playoff schedule:

Divisional Round

• Texans shock the Ravens 31-28 (I want Stroud to go all the way now, since he's the one who took down the Browns)
• Bills take down the Chiefs 34-28 (Mahomes doesn't quite have the right supporting cast to break the Bills' hearts again
• Packers shock the 49ers 37-34 (Jordan Love is the future of Green Bay, 49ers struggle with injuries)
• Lions beat the Buccaneers 24-21 (Detroit is boiling over with energy right now)

Conference Championships

• Bills beat the Texans 38-24 (I want Stroud to go all the way, but the inexperience will catch up with him at this point)
• Packers beat the Lions 42-31 (The Packers win was the only game I actually partially watched this season, so I want them in the Super Bowl. Also just a fun team. Classic color scheme.)

Super Bowl

• Bills beat the Packers 34-31 (It all finally comes together in Buffalo. Packers will get rings with Love, just not yet.)

Check back in after a month and see how things went!

Sõnasisu Igavesti

 

Integral to the Finnish national psyche is the concept of sisu.

Determination, endurance, grit. The quiet and indomitable and stubborn willingness to continue in the struggle. The kind of attitude that will take on the vastly superior might of the Soviet Union with a calm and relentless ferocity like it did in the Winter War of 1939-1940. 

We Christians could do with more of what I'll call Sõnasisu.

Taking this sisu and applying it to the source of our strength, hope, and life: the Words of the living God.

Taking the Word of God and treating it with less of the hobbyist's pleasure and more of the warrior's sisu.

Now I know that many a time in the history of God's people, and still today, we are tempted to overemphasize the "seriousness" of our Christian walk, and establish rules and orders and tiers of holiness to show our piety. 

That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and clinging to that truth with the same dogged determination that led those Finns to eat the flesh and blood of the Son of God, and then ski out to fight and die against the forces of darkness.

I'm Estonian, not Finnish. Our recent national history has been more a story of willing subjugation and godlessness, not sisu and faithfulness. But I want to be like one of the hundred or so Estonian soldiers who made the deadly trek across the frozen Gulf of Finland, all the way to the front lines, joining their brethren in the good fight. And I would like to do my part in redefining the Estonian national ethos to be more like that of the Finns.

Except that I would root our sisu not in human will, but in the Word of God. Sõnasisu. The faith of the watchmen, whose hope is in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, who stand firm upon the field of battle fearless and deadly, Sword of the spirit held in hands trained for war by the LORD God almighty.

Sisu can only take you to the grave. Sõnasisu is an abiding in God's Word, a continual prayer, that reaches beyond the grave. For the Words of Jesus Christ are the Words of eternal life.

Sõnasisu Igavesti.

How do we take up this Sõnasisu? How do we begin to grow into good men, armed for war? Start with your knife. Mine is Psalm 130. Find yours. The specific choice is not as important as using it - constantly. The only trick of our godless enemies is to turn us aside from the Word of God. If we cling to it, all their thousand plots are foiled in an instant. The Word comes to us in a book, in preaching, in absolution, in water, in bread, and in wine. It is our hope. And it endures forever. Commit yourself to it, cling to it, do not run aimlessly, keep yourself from idols, lest you should be disqualified. You belong to Christ. You who think you stand, take heed, lest you fall. Be a man of God.

Psalm 130

Sõnasisu Igavesti