Sports Spectrum

This weekend the Winter Olympics in Vancouver will draw to a close. It has been a terrific Olympics, though occasionally plagued with weather problems, and the people of Vancouver are to be congratulated for putting on a terrific show. The venues have been breathtakingly beautiful, the competition has been exciting, and the spirit of the games has seemed very good (to one person watching from a distance).

With all of that, however, the games began under a shroud of tragedy. Two weeks later, it is important that we remember the luge accident that took the life of Georgian athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili, who was killed in an accident during a luge training run at the Whistler Sliding Centre on February 12. His last phone call to his father was to tell his Dad that he was going to make him proud. I have no doubt that this hurting father is proud of his late son—but while the world has celebrated triumph, the Kumaritashvili family has dealt with loss and grief. Triumph and tragedy are very much part of life… and they often seem to travel together. That is true for the Christian experience as well.

Sometimes our greatest victories are born out of tragic situations. It seems that the moment of pain and grief opens the door for God’s grace in ways that we could never experience, bringing us a sense of spiritual wholeness that we could have never known—apart from the pain. Paul experienced this personally in Acts 27, when the tragedy of a shipwreck experience gave opportunity for the message of Christ to reach the hearts of the sailors on board. Spiritual victory. In his own physical body, Paul apparently suffered some kind of deep, painful ailment that God (2 Corinthians 12) refused to take away—so that Paul could learn of the sufficiency of grace. Spiritual victory. And, as he sat in Rome’s Mamertine prison awaiting execution (2 Timothy 4), Paul saw the finish line ahead and the victory lap that awaited him in spite of the suffering he was experiencing. Spiritual victory.

Life is often marked by tragedy, but, by God’s grace, spiritual victory can be what God produces out of those times of pain and loss. Remember—God doesn’t waste anything. And that includes the tragedies of life.

Join us tomorrow on Sports Spectrum radio as we consider the close of the Winter Olympics, and the real issues in life and sports.

Bill Crowder, Sport Spectrum Chaplain