We’re off this afternoon to
Olympics football in Coventry, having been genuinely impressed and uplifted by
Friday night’s opening ceremony. The spectacular transformation from a rural
scene to the industrial revolution was brilliantly executed, and I thought it
was great to see the NHS given pride of place in an event designed to showcase
the achievements of modern Britain.
But the part of the evening which
got me thinking most came when the competitors from all 204 teams took their
time to process into the arena. I was reminded of John’s vision of the New
Jerusalem in Revelation 21: ‘And the city has no
need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its
lamp is the Lamb. The nations will
walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will
be no night there. People will bring
into it the glory and the honour of the nations.’
Could it be
that the scenes we saw on Friday were so uplifting for us, because they point
forward to something we hunger for deep down, an eventual healing of relationships
as people are gathered by God in a new world free from war and violence. I
realise that so much of modern sport falls short of the ideal vision many of us
would wish to see realised. There’s too much money and too many egos, but there’s
also a lot to celebrate, not only the individual performances of people who
have trained long and hard to get to the games but the way sport unites.
Perhaps this
is the reason why the more I think about it, the more astonished and offended I
am about MP Aidan Burley’s now notorious tweet about "leftie
multi-cultural" rubbish. The whole point of 204 nations gathering
together to compete is that the games will be multi-cultural. What else but
sport could bring about such a diverse and vast set of people and unite them in
an atmosphere which allows a brief respite from political agendas? Let’s put
our cynicism on hold for just a little while, and also look upon the games as a
brief but tantalising foretaste of a longer-lasting unity God will one day
usher in.
I admit I got bored and switched off after 10 minutes. But speaking from a position of indifferent ignorance, I think Aidan Burley's comment probably summed up the attitude of many of those in power in this and many other countries. The Olympic emperor has few if any clothes. (That's very Olympic isn't it:-))The essence of his comment would seem to betray a belief that the Olympics IS a political event - a celebration of Western Consumerist Capitalism (sponsored by McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Cadbury, etc.) (and we have to show that we are as good as those Communist Chinese were last time...) Call me cynical, but it seems more an exercise in Mass Distraction rather than anything else. Once upon a time the Olympics probably was purely about sport, but the Market has ensured it isn't any more.
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