What do the Olympics and Heaven have in common?
My husband is a sports fanatic. If it's a sport, we've watched it on TV. Unless you're reading this from somewhere in Siberia, and even then, you know that we are in the last few days of the thirtieth Olympiad. I've seen it all in the last several days: swimming, table tennis, gymnastics, beach volleyball, and diving. I even saw some guys playing a sport I can't name and have never seen before.
For my husband sport is serious business. We watched the latest May/Walsh victory over the Chinese beach volleyball team, and it was a close one. My husband said, "Well we won, but I swear I just lost three months of my life." He gets that into anything competitive. My response to his comment? "Well, at least it's the three months at the end."
My husband has held his breath watching the light-weight sculls. On the other hand, the thing that has impacted me most about the Olympics is not the sport but the heart behind it. I love the inspirational stories of athletes that have overcome amazing odds and how the games can represent the best of the human experience.
Wait! I can see your eyes rolling back in your heads. I'm not going there. I promise. This is not a homily about perseverance or anything like that.
I want to talk about the opening ceremony. I have to admit that I'm a little bit of an Anglophile. Come on; I'm the girl with a Jane Austen quote for every occasion. During the opening ceremony I was delighted. A huge Voldemort came out of the ground, Multi-Mary Poppins flew in, and kids jumped on beds, lots of them. I really appreciated the latter being a former and incorrigible bed jumper myself.
So there I was sitting in my burgundy arm chair watching all this unfold in our living room, when things took a turn. I'm a sucker for symbols. When the "new generation" of young athletes took their torches for that last run around the stadium and I realized that all the little brass funnels carried in by each country were a single parts of a bigger sculpture, which would become the Olympic Torch, I was overcome. That might seem like an exaggeration to you, but I'm serious. As the torch was lit and all those individual flames rose to become one mighty fire, I nearly started bawling. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that I always feel like a dweeb when I do that. Plus my husband is sitting there thinking something along these lines, "I wonder how many BTU's that baby puts out," and he hates it when I cry.
Did you see it? I hope you did. When all those flames joined with the whole world watching and all those people there in person from all over the world. I was pierced with an intense longing. I sat there thinking about what the Olympics is supposed to be all about -- everyone in the world at peace, existing together, playing together. There was so much joy, hope, peace, and promise in that moment. Sadly, all those the ideals represented by that fire aren't true about us. Are they? That torch might be burning, even as I write this, but simultaneously there is so much reality to contradict everything it stands for. Syria is a mess, oil refineries are burning, and people are killing strangers for no discernible reason. I feel like there's no way to tell you how sad that makes me feel.
Isn't that how it goes? We want to believe that we can solve our problems, that human beings have it in us to finally rise above it all, but we don't.
Thankfully, we don't have to live without hope.
This summer I listened to the podcast of Dr. Louis Brighton's seminary class about the book of Revelation. A few disclaimers about the podcast. It's the audio recording of an all male, Lutheran pastoral class which includes the students translating Greek and such. The content is pretty dense; however, it immensely helped my personal understanding of my faith and the book of Revelation, which is a text that always seems so mysterious and unapproachable. I found Dr.Brighton very down to earth, and he made understanding the text possible. He's been around for a while, and my favorite part of the class was the stories he told about his faith and life experiences. He came back to a particular passage again and again. He told a fantastic story about it that brought me to tears. Listen to the podcast introduction if you want to hear it.
I won't be saving up my pocket change in a pickle jar to travel to Rio in four years. I'm holding out for something even better, and I don't need to save my quarters because my ticket was already bought about two thousand years ago on a hill just outside Jerusalem. In fact, the very reason I'm writing this is because I know I'll be there, and I want you to be there too.
So enjoy the Olympics in hope. I will be.
Image credit:
http://ecreativedesigns.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/9-Olympic-Torch-2012-646x358.jpg
For my husband sport is serious business. We watched the latest May/Walsh victory over the Chinese beach volleyball team, and it was a close one. My husband said, "Well we won, but I swear I just lost three months of my life." He gets that into anything competitive. My response to his comment? "Well, at least it's the three months at the end."
My husband has held his breath watching the light-weight sculls. On the other hand, the thing that has impacted me most about the Olympics is not the sport but the heart behind it. I love the inspirational stories of athletes that have overcome amazing odds and how the games can represent the best of the human experience.
Wait! I can see your eyes rolling back in your heads. I'm not going there. I promise. This is not a homily about perseverance or anything like that.
I want to talk about the opening ceremony. I have to admit that I'm a little bit of an Anglophile. Come on; I'm the girl with a Jane Austen quote for every occasion. During the opening ceremony I was delighted. A huge Voldemort came out of the ground, Multi-Mary Poppins flew in, and kids jumped on beds, lots of them. I really appreciated the latter being a former and incorrigible bed jumper myself.
So there I was sitting in my burgundy arm chair watching all this unfold in our living room, when things took a turn. I'm a sucker for symbols. When the "new generation" of young athletes took their torches for that last run around the stadium and I realized that all the little brass funnels carried in by each country were a single parts of a bigger sculpture, which would become the Olympic Torch, I was overcome. That might seem like an exaggeration to you, but I'm serious. As the torch was lit and all those individual flames rose to become one mighty fire, I nearly started bawling. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that I always feel like a dweeb when I do that. Plus my husband is sitting there thinking something along these lines, "I wonder how many BTU's that baby puts out," and he hates it when I cry.
Did you see it? I hope you did. When all those flames joined with the whole world watching and all those people there in person from all over the world. I was pierced with an intense longing. I sat there thinking about what the Olympics is supposed to be all about -- everyone in the world at peace, existing together, playing together. There was so much joy, hope, peace, and promise in that moment. Sadly, all those the ideals represented by that fire aren't true about us. Are they? That torch might be burning, even as I write this, but simultaneously there is so much reality to contradict everything it stands for. Syria is a mess, oil refineries are burning, and people are killing strangers for no discernible reason. I feel like there's no way to tell you how sad that makes me feel.
Isn't that how it goes? We want to believe that we can solve our problems, that human beings have it in us to finally rise above it all, but we don't.
Thankfully, we don't have to live without hope.
This summer I listened to the podcast of Dr. Louis Brighton's seminary class about the book of Revelation. A few disclaimers about the podcast. It's the audio recording of an all male, Lutheran pastoral class which includes the students translating Greek and such. The content is pretty dense; however, it immensely helped my personal understanding of my faith and the book of Revelation, which is a text that always seems so mysterious and unapproachable. I found Dr.Brighton very down to earth, and he made understanding the text possible. He's been around for a while, and my favorite part of the class was the stories he told about his faith and life experiences. He came back to a particular passage again and again. He told a fantastic story about it that brought me to tears. Listen to the podcast introduction if you want to hear it.
"After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice saying, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!' All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying: 'Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever. Amen.'" Revelation 7:9-19 (NKJV, italics mine)Sitting and watching the Olympic torch being lit, I realized that someday a scene just like the one I was seeing on my TV would happen, not just in hope, but in reality. The last half of Revelation chapter seven after verse nine is the most sublime picture of heaven that answers all of the longing in my heart and so much more.
I won't be saving up my pocket change in a pickle jar to travel to Rio in four years. I'm holding out for something even better, and I don't need to save my quarters because my ticket was already bought about two thousand years ago on a hill just outside Jerusalem. In fact, the very reason I'm writing this is because I know I'll be there, and I want you to be there too.
So enjoy the Olympics in hope. I will be.
Image credit:
http://ecreativedesigns.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/9-Olympic-Torch-2012-646x358.jpg
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