Today the 2016 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, comes to a close. The Games started on the 5th August.
It is a major international multi-sport event with more than 11,000 athletes taking part and 306 sets of medals were given out.
The Olympic Games are held every four years and hence for some athletes, it’s a “now or never” opportunity.
And certainly it can be a great ecstasy to win a medal at the Olympics, and we Singaporeans knows how it feels as Joseph Schooling won for Singapore the first Olympic gold medal.
Singapore won only one medal but it was enough for an overwhelming celebration for our nation.
But let us also remember that Joseph Schooling had to overcome the disappointment of finishing last in the men’s 100m freestyle semi-finals, which was the other event that he competed. So winning the gold in the 100m butterfly in record time is really an achievement for him.
And if we think that Usain Bolt, aka “Lighting Bolt”, has always been the winner, well, he too knows how it feels to come in at last place in a race, although it was due to injury.
Still, to come in last on the world stage is like being an extra in a movie set; you are just there for decoration and it’s like self-humiliation.
In the gospel, Jesus said something interesting about being first and being last.
He said that those now last will be first, and those now first will be last.
He seems to be using a sporting competition as an analogy, where there is a first place and a last place.
And then He seems to be talking about a reversal of fortunes, where the first become last, and the last become first.
He could be talking about a race, a race of another nature, a spiritual race.
As how 1 Cor 9:23-25 puts it - in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize. They run in such a way as to win the prize. Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline. They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is imperishable.…
So it is a race where we want to win but it is not to be in the first position.
It is a race where from the last position we want to encourage others to go on ahead of us so as discover for themselves their own strengths and abilities.
It is a race where if there are others behind us, then we want to motivate them to be better than us so that they won’t feel dejected and rejected.
It is a race where we run but for a very different objective.
And it will take a lot of training in humility to see the spiritual objectives and to do it for a crown that is imperishable.
And this kind of spiritual training in humility is certainly not easy because it goes against our instinct to be in the first position and to be a winner, and not a loser.
But as the 2nd reading tells us: The Lord trains the ones that He loves and He trains all those that He acknowledges as His sons.
Suffering is part of your training; God is treating you as His sons.
The suffering that is part of our training is to help us let go of what is perishable so as to win what is imperishable.
The race of life is a race uphill. To win it without a struggle is perhaps to win it without honour. If there were no difficulties, there would be no victories. If there is nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to achieve.
And the first race would be in our own thinking. Let’s say that there is a race and there are only three runners and you are one of them.
You would want to go for the first position, the gold medal, and if not then it will be the silver.
Would you settle for the third position, the bronze medal, which is as good as being the last?
But to accept the third position means that you let two other people go ahead, and that is Jesus, others and then you – J,O,Y. Indeed there is joy in being third, or last. So it’s not about gold or silver or bronze. Rather it is about Jesus, others and then you. J-O-Y. That’s the joy of the race.
Joseph Schooling won an Olympic gold medal but he also brought joy to a 12-year old Pathlight student who dedicated a “mouse with medal” drawing to him.
For 12-year-old Jolie Lim, who is autistic, Joseph Schooling's historic win is an inspirational story about overcoming life's challenges.
To express how she felt, Jolie produced an A3-sized drawing under the encouragement of her mother.
Jolie had hoped to meet Schooling to pass him the artwork during his victory parade on Thursday, but she had to sit for her PSLE exam in the morning.
After the exam, she and her mum could only rush down to Raffles City Shopping Centre, the last stop of the victory parade, at around noon. However, Jolie is afraid of crowds and was unable to catch a glimpse of the swimming star.
At her mother’s request, The Straits Times helped to pass on Jolie's drawing to Schooling's minders. The drawing, which took Jolie three hours to complete, depicts a mouse with a gold medal, beating its larger competitors including an eagle, a cat and a dog.
On Thursday night, Schooling responded in an 11-second video, thanking Jolie for her drawing. It was a simple gesture, but one that meant much to Jolie.
Schooling is a winner, but he also helps others to be winners.
The joy of winning is when Jesus and others go before you. It’s a joy that all the medals in the world cannot give.