Losing

The deliberate losing by some of the Olympic 'competitors' today is interesting. It was a blatant version of something that is surprisingly common. Nobody was making these remarks of tragedy and woe when in the Cycling Road Race team members were 'disrupting' the following pack to enable their leading cyclist to prosper. That was called tactics (even though it was deliberately doing less than their best). When in the heats a swimmer or rower or runner saves themselves for a later heat or the final that too is tactics. The idea that everyone in every sporting encounter is doing their very best is very far from the truth. Football fans experience this in pre-season friendlies where fitness is far more the goal than the goal is

.

In a nutshell, the word is 'ultimate'.  Those badminton players were thinking ahead, not of the money that the crowd paid to watch them but of the gold medal.  They frustrated officials who wanted to not only award a medal but control a method.

This brings me to the wonderful Christian chestnut question.  What Would Jesus Do?

I think he'd lose.  Sure, the crowd jeered.  But for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  I suppose this is not a truth about Jesus that made it into many English Public School assemblies over the years but it is a reminder that the route to victory is not the route of popularity and that popularity is not victory.

Unqualified

A few weeks ago I met some of the Moldovan Olympic Swimming Team.  They were practising in our town Leisure Centre in preparation for the Olympics.  Of course when I say I met them what I mean is that one day as I left the changing room some of them were arriving to head to their special area to change and we nodded a hello to one another.  Still, maybe it will be THAT girl who wins the Gold medal!  I tried to remember their faces.  Certainly watching them some days ploughing up and down the pool was a reminder that it takes an ability and dedication far in excess of my swimming prowess to compete on such a stage.

Having felt that sense of distance, I can now report that (as things turned out) I had a lot more in common with the two young ladies I nodded at than I first supposed.  To my way of thinking there on the other side of the pool were the Olympic competitors and over with me and the assortment of splashers from Wycombe District were those who would watch them on television.  I was wrong in this interpretation.

This week they were back.  Well, no, he was back.  For as it turns out only one 17 year old guy Danila achieved the standard to qualify and all the other Moldovan swimmers will, like the rest of us, be watching him and the other competitors on television!

Many people interpret the divide between those religious people furiously practising their divine devotion and their own futile spiritual splashings as the one that is likely to one day see them disqualified from the prize (if there is one).  Most of the religious people think this with a passion too.

It does appear, though, that only one human being qualifies.  It is in Jesus's victory that we have our only hope of sharing in final glory - it is in him, not as well as him, that we can qualify.

Torch

All was well Sunday evening.

The night was a bit rough afterwards but Monday morning I woke to a virus that (to put it gently) necessitated a bowl and prevented thought about much else than whether it or a small room was in reach (pun kind of intended).

Well, the subtitle of this blog (which I confess is less pretentious than its main title) is about 'thinking aloud'.  What does a Pastor think about in the moments when the bowl can be temporarily ignored?  Yes, God sometimes.  But in recovering mode I've also been thinking about the Olympic Torch Relay.

The Relay promises endless illustrations for years to come - the marvellous variety of wonderful, often extraordinary but non-famous people who have carried it, the idea of taking a message over the whole of the United Kingdom by passing it on, the bringing together of young and old, sick and supremely well, its battle through wind and storm and so on. 

I think the idea of the relay is great.  I think the people carrying the flame are more than great. I look forward to reading through more of their stories.  It is, though, slightly bemusing when the live camera records the journey between towns and police motorcyclists are speeding down roads stopping traffic, lights flashing, as though royalty is passing through.  Given that the same sun that shines in Greece shines in the whole world the question is, why doesn't each relay fresh start simply light its torch from that same sun?

The practical answer may be that in Britain there is not enough sun to light the torch by . . .

Wouldn't it be interesting if every new convert to Christianity had to have a flame that had been lit in Jerusalem?  Ah, but then I suppose we do . . .

Higgs boson

Professor Stephen Hawking told the BBC this week that the result of an incredible thing that has happened in my lifetime (the almost-certain discovery of the Higgs boson particle at CERN, Geneva) cost him $100.  The scientists cheered at the Great Announcement of this (unconfirmed) discovery.  Hawking might have added that the Large Hadron Collider where it was probably discovered cost $10 billion.

This is the scientific equivalent of when I look on the back of a margarine container and discover a very obscure ingredient that was always there but I never knew for sure.  Then I carry on eating my toast.

I think I'll stick with being excited about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.  Unpredictable but prophesied, inexplicable yet inevitable, unapplauded but history-changing.