As a kid growing up in the 1990s I was a huge fan of wrestling.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Not actual wrestling like you might find in the Olympics, which is all about skill and competition. I was a fan of the entertainment variety. The kind in which results are pre-determined and what really matters are the cheesy story lines and over the top characters. And one character always stood out for me. The Undertaker.
Standing at over two metres tall, bulging with muscle and covered in tattoos, The Undertaker was a giant even by the standards of professional wrestling.
Yet what really made the Undertaker stand out was how cool his character was. Often billed as the "Deadman" his character was a dark and mysterious one who possessed supernatural abilities which often drifted into the realm of the occult.
I must admit, then, that I was somewhat surprised recently to discover that Mark Calaway, the man behind the character, is now a Christian. Mind you, the way that he talks of his coming to faith, I suspect that Calaway is just as surprised!
Having grown up in a nominally Christian environment where he attended a Catholic school Calaway had a vague belief in God which, by his own admission, played no part in his day-to-day life. But when his wife Michelle invited him to come to her church he began to see that his picture of God was way off the mark.
Initially he politely declined the invite, telling her: "I'm going to walk in there and the rafters are gonna start shaking...I believe in God, I'm good."
Yet she persisted and in time he agreed to go.
He recalls being nervous as he prepared to walk into the building for the first time. Looking at his tattoos, and considering the character for which he was famous, he thought "the pastor's going to see me and he is just going to throw fire and brimstone right at me".
His experience was nothing of the sort.
"I went reluctantly, but once I got there I found myself going from being tense and pensive to kind of leaning in and like, 'Wow, this is pretty cool.' That started my journey." A journey which has lead Calaway to a deep and lively faith in Jesus Christ.
All of that said, I have to admit that I feel a bit silly that my first response to Calaway's faith was surprise. After all I have spoken with countless people who have thought that they had understood God and had decided that all that church stuff was not for them. People who when they have dug a little deeper have been surprised by the true Jesus. I've even had the joy of watching as it has happen for a few people.
Jesus is, after all, a surprising God. He is not the God we might dream up if we were trying to work out what God should be like for ourselves. If we can step past the ideas and preconceptions we might have, and look for the true Jesus, we find someone far more amazing, gracious and life changing that we could begin to imagine.
As for Calaway, a few years on from first truly meeting Jesus he freely admits "I'm not perfect, I'm still in my process, I'm getting there."
Like all of us he still has plenty to discover of who Jesus is and what it means to follow him. The difference is that now he recognises it and is striving to know Jesus better. And it's exciting to see what God is doing in the life of one of my childhood heroes and to be reminded that God continues to do that work in the lives of countless others throughout the world. Even in those we might find most surprising.