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!
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