Paris Olympics 100 Years Ago: The Race That Counts

 The world is focused on Paris.  Celine Dione’s solo from the Eiffel Tower set the bar.  Performing for the first time since 2021 following a neurological disorder, Dione’s voice echoed through the streets of Paris and around the world, inspiring young and old alike.

 Within hours the youth of the world took the field, competing at the limits of human strength, speed, agility and endurance, striving for the gold.  Few things, if any, are as inspirational as the hopes and dreams of every generation’s youth.

 This is not the first Olympics in Paris, nor the first labeled ’24.  One hundred years ago another generation sent their youth to Paris in 1924 to compete for the gold.  Among them a young missionary from Scotland.  Eric Liddle who was believed to be the fastest man in the world in the 100 meter dash.  None had beaten him at that distance.

 A committed Christian, Eric Liddle had given his life to serve as a missionary to China.  His sister, Jenny, tried to persuade him to forego the Olympics and fulfill his calling to China.  He responded, “God made me.  And he made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.”

 At the Olympics in Paris, he had a problem.  His event, the 100-meter dash, had been scheduled for Sunday morning, the Lord’s Day.  His Christian commitment in the 1920s forbade him from competing on Sunday.  He had a crisis of conscience.  He refused to run.  As a compromise, the Olympic Committee allowed him to switch to the 400 meter, a race scheduled during the week.

 No one thought he had a chance in the 400.  It was a different race. His body was not conditioned and he had not trained for the much longer distance.  Critics said, “They’ll have to drag him in with a rope.”  But he ran.  Not just for himself, or for his country, but for God, and set a new Olympic record.  The 1982 Academy Award winning movie, Chariots of Fire, captures the drama.

 There will be many similar dramas playing themselves out these two weeks in Paris a hundred years later.  Young men and women, will run, inspired by their hopes, dreams and their faith.  What matters most is the race they continue to run long after the Olympics are over. Following the Paris Olympics in 1924, Eric Liddle fulfilled his commitment as a missionary to China where he died in a Japanese internment camp in 1945.  His grave was recovered in 1996 in Weifang, China and marked with a simple stone of Scottish granite, a testimony to one who ran his race for the pleasure of God!

The Olympics

 All eyes are focused on Paris for the Opening Ceremonies of the 2024 Summer Games next Friday, July 26.   The best athletes of the world will compete to the limit of their talent and determination.  Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history, will again compete for the gold in women’s gymnastics.  LeBron James, 39, competed in his first Olympics 20 years ago.  He will return to lead the U.S. in its search for another gold.

 The Olympic Games date back to 776 BC and were expanded in the first century by Augustus Caesar, the Emperor of record at Jesus’ birth.  Writing to Greeks in the first century, the Apostle Paul drew on Olympic metaphors to help them understand how to live the Christian life: “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.” (1 Corinthians 9:24).

 Christianity is not a spectator religion. We all must run!  Our churches are arranged so that most of us appear to be spectators watching a few performers on the stage. The truth is that we all must compete in the race every day. Sunday services are more like team meetings in the locker room, or a pep rally before the big game, preparing us for the main event that starts on Monday. 

 The Academy Award winning movie “Chariots of Fire” was based on the 1924 Olympic competition between Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, the two fastest men of their day.  Abrahams had never lost a race until Eric Liddell beat him in the 100-meter dash by a single step.  Mortified by the loss, he later sat in the empty stands with his fiancé.  She kept trying to encourage him, but he finally snapped at her, “You don’t understand.  If I can’t win, I won’t run.”  Stunned, she paused for a moment then responded with typical feminine insight. “If you don’t run,” she said, “you can’t win!” That is the Apostle’s point.  If we don’t run, we can’t win.  We must all live out our faith in Christ in such a way that we “run to win!”

 This requires discipline. Paul continues, “Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.(1 Cor. 9:25). The athletes we are watching in Paris must exercise great discipline in diet and training. Only by imposing discipline upon their bodies can they compete for the gold. 

Too many Christians think that once they accept Christ by faith and receive the assurance of heaven that they can live however they wish. They are like someone who has been accepted to the Olympics and prepares for their event by eating Blue Bell ice cream and watching others practice. They might be at the Olympics, but they won’t win. The Apostle concludes, “I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” (1 Cor. 9:27).

the Assassination Attempt

 The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has shocked and, hopefully, sobered our nation.  For too long our national politicians have indulged in violent and acerbic rhetoric.  An entire generation has come into their adult years listening to Presidential candidates characterizing one another as dangerous extremists. 

 Fortunately, the would-be-assassin’s bullet missed its mark by a fraction of an inch and Donald Trump was spared.  Tragically the other bullets he fired took a heroic father’s life and left two others seriously wounded.  Hopefully the shock of the scene will cause everyone to rachet down their assumptions and accusations, both in public discourse and in private.

 Some of us, who are a dwindling number, remember the 1960’s: the paralyzing report that President Kennedy had been killed on the streets of Dallas November 22,1963;  Martin Luther King, Jr. shot down by a sniper’s bullet at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, April 4, 1968;  and Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy dying in a pool of blood at the hands of an assassin in  the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, June 5, 1968.  Emotions were high.  Thousands were dying in Vietnam.  Protesting students were gunned down at Kent State.   Those were tragic times we hoped would never be repeated.

 Words matter.  Jesus was clear in His instructions and warnings.  “You have heard it said, you shall not murder, but I say to you everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court, and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good for nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell,” (Matthew 5:21-22).

 A 20-year-old young man fired the bullets that killed one and wounded others, including former President Trump, but everyone who has engaged in denigration of opposing candidates in both parties had their finger on the trigger.  We must do better.

 Our politicians and journalists must lead the way, treating one another with courtesy and respect.  Listening with consideration rather than shouting and dismissing.  Again, as Jesus instructed, “There is a saying, ‘Love your friends and hate your enemies.’ But I say: Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!  … If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Even scoundrels do that much. If you are friendly only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even the heathen do that,” (Matthew 5:43-48 Living Bible.)

Flying Upside Down

 Twenty-five years ago, July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy, Jr. took off on his fateful flight from Essex County Airport, New Jersey.  Heir to the legendary Kennedy good looks, charm and fortune, the young Kennedy possessed unlimited potential for political and commercial fame.  But, in less than two hours, his young life would be cut short along with his wife and sister-in-law who were passengers.

 Flying at night without instrument ratings, the young Kennedy was dependent upon visual contact with the ground in order to land the Piper Saratoga safely at Martha’s Vineyard Airport two hundred miles away. Unknown to Kennedy, he was flying into a night fog.  Choosing to fly over open water, he became disoriented with no visual horizon, and apparently pulled the plane into a deadly spiral. Their bodies were discovered in the wreckage eight miles off the coast of Massachusetts. 

 Kennedy’s tragic death underlines the dangers of spatial disorientation in flight, something commonly referred to as “flying upside down.”  The pilot thinks he is flying right-side up, but is, in fact, “flying upside down,” so that when he thinks he is pulling up, he is instead flying into the ground. Dallas Willard used this metaphor to introduce his book, The Divine Conspiracy drawing the conclusion that Jesus was the only person who ever lived who knew how to fly right-side up. The rest of us, left to our own devices, inevitably fly upside down. 

This is the reason Jesus’ instructions sound so counter intuitive.  “Give and it shall be given to you, good measure, pressed down and running over.”  “Whoever would save his shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”  “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. … If you love those who love you what reward do you have?” “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.  Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.” “Do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also”

Jesus’ instructions sound incredulous in a world that operates on systems of revenge and retaliation, of greed and self-interest.  Perhaps that is the reason our world seems to be out of control, gripped in a death spiral destined for destruction. Only when we learn to trust the One who alone can see the horizon are we able to “right our plane” and fly right-side up.

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You Are Better Than You Think

 This last weekend was one of those weekends we live for.  At 77 I taught my 7-year-old grandson to ride a bike.  He has been unwilling to try, convinced it was something he could not do, paralyzed with self-doubt.  But the time had come.  He needed to learn. We used his sister’s hand-me-down bike, pink with pink pedals. 

 I told him to stand on one foot, while I did the same.  His balance was much better than mine.  I explained that no-one can balance on a bike standing still.  We started at the top of a moderate hill so he could learn to balance without pedaling.  The pedals got in the way, so, I removed them.  I lowered the seat so he could place his feet on the ground while seated to steady himself and to stop. At first it was only a few feet, then a few more, by the end of the day he was able to balance the bike all the way to the bottom of the hill.  That was enough.

 The following day, I added the pedals.  I told him how my dad taught me to ride a bike when I was his age.  I loved it then and still do, even at 77.  We went to a school parking lot.  He learned to position the pedal at the top of a downward stroke to launch himself into motion.  He wobbled.  He didn’t go far.  I took his face in my hands, looked into his eyes and said, “You are better than you think you are.”   By the end of the day he was riding wherever he wanted to ride.  When he demonstrated his newfound skill to his parents they were thrilled.  He said, “Tomorrow, you can buy me my own bike!”  They did.

 That experience reminded me of a lesson we all must continually learn.  We all have moments when we struggle with self-doubt.  We feel like Charlie Brown in Peanuts, “One step on the stage of life and we feel that we are not right for the part.”  It is as if God is constantly whispering into our ear the words I said to my grandson, “You are better than you think you are.”

 Read God’s conversation with Moses on the back side of the desert in Exodus 3.  Moses continually argues that he is unable to do what God is asking him to do.  He is not articulate.  No one will believe him. The people will not follow. 

 Listen to Isaiah in the temple, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips,” (Isaiah 6).  Or Peter when He met Jesus, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  Jesus responded, “I will make you fishers of men.”

 Whatever your weakness, whatever your failing, whatever your fear.  You are better than you think you are.  God sees it in you!  He will forgive you, cleanse you and make you better than you believed you could be. (2 Corinthians 5:17).