The Super Bowl was played last week and, of course, the big conversation revolved around the ads. It’s always been a big thing. Still my favorite from “way back in the day” is a Pepsi commercial where you see the landscape of the desert and hear music that is somewhat soothing, but also some irritating receptive noise that keeps repeating. The camera zooms in and it’s a guy trying to put a dollar bill into the vending machine and it keeps getting rejected.

No idea now why I liked it then, but I remembering laughing so hard.

But in our era, commercials aren’t commercials anymore. And, it turns out, football games aren’t football games, either. The Super Bowl was RIGGED to give us the beautiful narrative of Taylor Swift seeing Travis Kelce win the Super Bowl.

We are just that angry these days.

But, it seems, outdistancing the rigging of the Super Bowl is the “He Gets Us” ad that ran close to the beginning of the game.

Ironically enough, it angered conservative Christians AND progressives. I’m not mad at anything, other than being disappointed by people because, quite honestly, that’s not their best ad.

You can get the lay of the land as the WHY each side didn’t like the commercial HERE.

But this quote is a good summation of what the ad might be asking us to think about:

The best explanation I’ve heard for the ad came from Kaitlyn Schiess, a Christian writer and speaker and frequent guest on the Holy Post podcast. She argued that the ad asks, “Are you willing to be shamed for your associations?” In other words, are you willing to risk shame and isolation for loving those on the other side of the political and religious aisle? Are you, like Jesus, willing to love others even if it causes people to hate you? Are you willing to love others even if they haven’t repented of what you believe to be grievous sins?

What it comes down to is this: I can love you and serve you without agreeing with you.

This is the way of Jesus. It’s NOT the way of our culture, and we are damaged because of it.

Now, excuse me, I have to watch MY favorite Super Bowl commercial again:

And I’m absolutely hooked on the “extended cut” of the commercial.