Thought for the Day, 8 August 2008

Catherine Pepinster

Billions of people around the globe will begin watching the Olympic Games in Beijing today. Despite the controversial choice of China as the host nation, and protests about its human rights record, there is an idealism still about the Olympics. That idealism began with the ancient Greeks who saw the Games as a celebration of the human body and a way of honouring the Gods. The founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, concerned about the condition of French young men after his country's defeat in the Franco-Prussian war, thought the Games would improve fitness and would bring young people together on the sports field rather than on the battleground. And since the Games began again in 1896, they have brought people together from across the globe despite the barriers of language, race and culture. But the Olympics are something else as well. They are an enthralling narrative of the heroic. They are stories of virtues - of temperance, prudence, fortitude but above all of sacrifice - revealing to us what can be achieved by those who stop at nothing in their pursuit of excellence. They are a metaphor too for life itself. In Corinth, where St Paul preached, there was a stadium where the Isthmian Games were held. "Do you not know," he told the Corinthians, "that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receive the prize? So run that you may obtain it!. And he went on, emphasising the need for purpose: "I do not run aimlessly, not do I box beating the air". Just as in Paul's time, sport is for us an example of how to live: to make sacrifices for what we believe in, to persevere, not only on the sports field, but in our lives and in our beliefs, including religious faith. As the Games open today in China, it's worth remembering the runner Eric Liddell, who won Gold for the Men's 400 metres at the 1924 Olympics. After his sporting triumphs, he worked in China as a missionary. In 1943 he was interned by the Japanese but when Churchill successfully petitioned the Japanese for him to be repatriated, Liddell gave up his place to a pregnant woman. When he died, just months later, malnourished and exhausted, a fellow internee said that Liddell gave him two things - his worn-out running shoes and what he called his baton of forgiveness. Liddell taught that internee to love his enemies. And after making sacrifices, first on the running track, then as a missionary, he paid the ultimate sacrifice of his life.