A WORD FOR TODAY, March 20, 2026
Peggy Hoppes
We pray you have been blessed by this daily devotion.
Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, March 20, 2026
“Now on the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, from within him will flow rivers of living water.’ But he said this about the Spirit, which those believing in him were to receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus wasn’t yet glorified.” John 7:37-39, WEB
Britain was not a homogenous society more than a thousand years ago. Before William the Conqueror, it was comprised of many small kingdom states. These individual societies were often small. We visited one “castle” that was smaller than the average American house. They warred against one another; land and people moved back and forth under the leadership of local kings. Though the societies were larger, the Mayan world was much the same. Though there were similarities between these nation states, there were also differences, and the cities of the Mayans were often at war.
One thing that was common was a ball game, a Mesoamerican team sport called Pok to Pok. Thousands of ball courts have been unearthed in the Americas as far north as Arizona and as far south as Nicaragua. As with many details about these cultures, the rules of the game are uncertain. The information we have is based on a similar game played by the Aztecs and depictions found in art, but the game rules may have differed from nation state to nation state. Since the Mayans were decentralized, they did things their own way, including games. Pok ta Pok is believed to be one of the oldest team sports in the world. It was mostly played for ceremonial and ritualistic purposes, although it was also a source of entertainment for the people.
Our guide during our tour did his best to describe the game, but since there is such diversity, I have been unable to find many descriptions that agree. The game is played on a court with platforms on either side and high sloped walls behind them. In later courts, a stone hoop is found in the center of the sloped wall. It is believed that an offensive player stood on the platform trying to get a hard rubber ball through the hoop, with defenders working the court to keep the ball from the one on the platform. The goal of the game was to keep the ball in constant play. Points were won when a team let the ball fall to the ground. The game was over if the offensive player from either team was able to get the ball through the hoop, although that didn’t necessarily mean a win. The points mattered. The heavy ball was made of rubber and was played using the hips. Some versions allowed use of the legs or forearms. Other versions allowed bats or sticks. The hands could never be used. The ball was so heavy that it could cause death if it struck the head or torso.
Death was a part of the game, although not as common as we might suspect. Since it was a ceremonial or ritualistic sport, it was played to appease the gods, and the gods often demanded blood. Most of the online descriptions of the game suggest that the loser was sacrificed, however, our guide told us a different perspective. He suggested that the winner was the one sacrificed. Most of us listening thought, “I’d lose the game,” but for the Mayan, being chosen as the sacrifice for the sake of the community was an honor. Like the modern jihadists, blood spilled to honor the gods earned a person a quick trip to heaven.
It is likely that sacrifice did occur among the Mayans, and perhaps it became desperate in the later days of the cities. Water is vital to any society. There are no rivers or lakes in the Yucatan. There are cenotes, which are large sinkholes that fill with water in the rainy season, although Uxmal did not even have any of those. They had to build cisterns to catch the water. The Maya rain god Chaac is the most prominent in that city: his face is everywhere. He is shown with a hooked nose and bearing his trusty rainmaking tools (axe and snakes).
Uxmal was a city of nearly thirty thousand people at its height. It was led by nobility and priests. There were warriors and common people. The nobility and priests claimed to have special access to the gods. The king would report the word of the gods to the people. What the people did not know is that they had special knowledge of the stars and the seasons. When the king announced that it would rain, he made the claim that the gods told him so, but it was because they read the seasons in the stars.
Unfortunately, we all know that despite the cyclical nature of the seasons, sometimes things don’t go as we expect. We are in the midst of a lengthy drought in Texas, a drought that will end eventually, but until it begins to rain again, our water is quickly disappearing. That’s what happened to the Mayans. The king, based on his knowledge of the stars, reported that the gods told him the rain would begin, but it didn’t. The cenotes and cisterns became empty. No water means no crops. They probably tried appeasing the gods with sacrifice first, most likely even the king was put to death. It became so bad around the twelfth century that the people disappeared to other places. We often blame the Spaniards for the fall of the Mayan world, but it was the lack of water that destroyed the civilization hundreds of years before the Spaniards landed.
The Mayan people thought they needed to appease the gods to get what they wanted from them, especially water, so they offered sacrifices through ceremonial rituals. When it didn’t work, the people turned on those who claimed to have a special relationship with the gods.
Jesus knew the importance of water, especially to people who lived in a desert climate like the wilderness of Israel. He told the woman at the well, who had to settle for less than optimum water, that He is the Living Water. He is still our Living Water today. Unlike the Maya, we know that weather can be cyclical, that droughts happen, and that we can do nothing to appease any gods to get it to rain. In matters of faith, however, Jesus fills us with true drink that leads to life now and forever. He was the only blood that needed to be shed for the sake of the people. He was the final sacrifice needed to make things right with the true God of heaven. We turn to Him in prayer and hope that it will rain again, but we know that we have eternal life because He accomplished the requirements of our God for forgiveness and reconciliation with our Creator.
A WORD FOR TODAY is posted five days a week – Monday through Friday. The devotional on Wednesday takes a look at the scripture from the Revised Common Lectionary for the upcoming Sunday. A WORD FOR TODAY is posted on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Word-for-Today-Devotional/339428839418276.