THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH?

So, the Olympic Games are on us again. All eyes turn to Beijing and a festival of sport for the better part of three weeks. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea of course. It seems you either love it, or hate it, or are indifferent to it. Whichever way it is, though, it’s hard to avoid.

Feelings are always mixed with such sporting events. Nowadays the question arises if it is all ‘genuine.’ There is obviously great concern over performance-enhancing drugs, and big question marks have been raised in some areas, such as weight-lifting where drug tests have caught out many competitors. There are all sorts of stories of ‘blood doping,’ and even gene treatment. It seems that people will go to extreme lengths to get an advantage in sports competition. In some sports, though, the sheer bulk of competitors – male or female – seems un-natural. Physical exercise and play aspects are legitimate in themselves. As Paul writes to Timothy: “bodily exercise profits a little.” By contrast, however, “godliness is profitable for all things.” Why is that? Well, because godliness has “promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come” (1 Timothy 4:8). The great Scottish Olympic champion of 1924 and later missionary to China, Eric Liddell, was once asked by a reporter whether he missed the limelight and fame of the sporting life. Liddell answered astutely: “Oh, well, it’s natural for a chap to think over all that sometimes, but I’m glad I am in the work I’m engaged in now. A fellow’s life counts for more at this than the other. Not a corruptible crown, but an incorruptible, you know.” This is in line with the teaching of Paul: “everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown” (1 Corinthians 9:25). That puts even the highest prizes in sport, or any other area of life, strictly in perspective.

But whether or not we may have the slightest interest in the Olympics, there is a race to run. In the letter to the Hebrews the apostle speaks of the cloud of witnesses of the Old Testament who exemplified active faith in their day. And there is a race the believer is to run in our day: let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (12:1-2). We are reminded that “without faith it is impossible to please Him” (11:6). Besides this, sport pales into insignificance.

Rev John W Keddie