Today I want to speak with you about living life bravely,
no matter what it is you may have to face …
and not just bravely, but beautifully …
and not just beautifully, but wonderfully …
and not just wonderfully, but in such a way
that you can look back on your life and say, as the Apostle Paul said about his,
“I have fought the good fight,
I have finished the race,
I have kept the faith.
Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness …”

When Kim and I took our winter break this year
we visited our son, Denny, and his wife Beth in London, England,
where they are both working until the end of this year.
And while there, we took a five day trip with them to Athens, Greece.

Surprisingly, it was the warmest winter in London in 100 years
and it snowed for the first time in many years when we were in Athens.

When we visited Athens
    one of the sites we visited was not the athletic facilities
        built for the Olympic Games that Athens hosted in 2004
            but the restored and rebuilt 4th century Kallimarmaro Stadium  ~
                which was used when the first modern Olympics were held in 1896,
                    The original games, first held in 776 BC,
                 were one day events held in Olympia,
            a vast plain in Greece held to be, by the ancient Greeks,
        the chief sanctuary of the god Zeus  ~
    to whom the games were dedicated  ~
and included athletic, literary and musical competitions.
I don’t know if the original Olympic motto was “Faster.  Stronger.  Higher,”
but that is the motto of the modern Olympics.

And the sad thing that has happened to sports  ~ 
both professional and amateur  ~ in our time
is the use of performance enhancing drugs
which are intended to put the athletes at the top of their game.

And for many it’s no longer “Faster.  Stronger.  Higher.”
Its “Fastest.  Strongest.  Highest.”  At any cost.

But there is a cost.
    Barry Bond’s home-run record in major league baseball
        has an asterisk beside it.
            The gold medal Ben Johnson won
                    for running the fastest 100 metres ever run
                        was stripped from him.
                            And how many others who have played the game like that
                                have lost, not just the win, and not just the medals,
                                    but the respect and admiration of those
                                        who thought them heroes.

I think of that and compare it to the spirit which prevailed
at the 1999 Special Olympics World Summer Games
held in Raleigh, North Carolina.

There, special Olympians with mental disabilities,
    hailing from all over the world, including Canada  -
        without the media coverage …
            without the hype and hoopla …
                without their agents and news conferences  -
                    also strove to be faster, stronger, higher.
                        But with a difference.

For these Olympians
the victory was in the effort, not the prize.
In part, their oath said:
“Let me win.
But if I cannot win …”  -
and most, of course, did not  -
“Let me win.
But if I cannot win
let me be brave in the attempt.”

It wasn’t their disability that made these Olympics special.
    It was the Olympians’ spirit.
        The sheer joy of participating.
            The smiles on their faces and on the faces of coaches and spectators.
                Smiles brought about not so much by the win
                    as by the bravery in the attempt …
                        the victory in the effort.

True champions, after all, are judged
by their character, and their spirit.
               
When I was a boy attending public school on London
        I remember hearing a most remarkable story
                and learning about a most remarkable man.
                        It was an inspiring story for me then.
                                It is an inspiring story still.

A little country schoolhouse was heated by an old-fashioned pot belly stove.
A young boy had the job of coming to school early each day
to start the fire and warm the room
before his teacher and classmates arrived.

One morning they arrived
to find the schoolhouse engulfed in flames.
They dragged the unconscious boy out of the flaming fire.
He was more dead than alive.
He had major burns over the lower half of his body
and was taken to a nearby hospital.

From his bed this terribly burned, semiconscious little boy
faintly heard the doctor talking to his mother.
She was told that her son would surely die,
which he said would be for the best,
for the lower half of his body had been devastated in the fire.

But he didn’t want to die.
He willed himself to live.
And when he was past mortal danger
he again overheard the doctor talking with his mother.

She was told that the fire had destroyed
so much of the flesh and muscle of his lower body
that her son would be doomed to a lifetime of being disabled
with no use of his lower limbs at all.

But he did not want to be disabled.
He would walk.
But from the waist down he had no motor ability.
His thin and disfigured legs just dangled there, all but lifeless.

When he was released from hospital and taken home
his mother followed the daily regimen of massaging his legs
but there was no feeling, no control, nothing.
Yet his determination to walk was just as strong.

When he wasn’t in bed he was in a wheelchair.
One day his mother wheeled him out into the yard
to get some fresh air.
But this day, instead of just sitting there,
he threw himself from the chair,
pulled himself across the grass,
dragging his legs behind him,
and made his way to the white picket fence
that bordered the lot.

With great effort, he raised himself alongside the fence.
Then, stake by stake,
he began dragging himself along the fence,
resolved that he would walk.
He did this every day until a smooth path was worn
all around the yard by the picket fence.

There was nothing he wanted more
than to develop life in those legs.

Ultimately through the daily massages
and his picket fence regimen
and his suffering which produced perseverance
and his perseverance which produced character
and his character which produced hope,
he developed the ability to stand …
and then to stand on his own …
and then to walk haltingly with assistance …
and then to walk by himself …
and then to run.

He began to walk to school.
Then run to school.
He run for the sheer joy of running.
Later in college he made the track team.

Still later, in Madison Square Garden in New York City, this young man
who was not expected to survive
who would never surely walk
who could never hope to run
this determined young man, Dr. Glenn Cunningham
at that time in the history of the sport
ran the world’s fastest mile.

If he had never run that fastest mile,
even though the world would never have known it,
those who knew him best,
those who were witness to his courageous spirit
those who knew his pain and glory,
would also have known that he was special and victorious
because of the bravery of the attempt.

In the scripture passage read today from Paul’s letters,
    he speaks about the race that all of us are in  ~  life’s race  ~
        and the need to be prepared and disciplined spiritually,
            for it is a race that can push us to the limit.

It is a race that can demand from us patience
                                and courage
                            and strong hearts
                        and the willingness to run the distance.

It is a race that can pit us against trouble
                        and disappointment
                    and discouragement.

It is a race that can sometimes
    have us run against those things
        that can break our hearts
            and wound our spirits …
                that can demand of us more, sometimes,
                    than we think we have the power to give.

Still, I have known people who have run that race,
a race as tough as Glenn Cunningham’s victory mile,
who have filled every minute
with 60 seconds of distance run,
who have run it with grace
and dignity
and courage …
and above all, faith.

They have run,
    and have been brave in the attempt,
        and, win or lose, have won.

They have run, and have prayed
    not for easy lives
        but to be stronger people.

They have run, and have prayed
    not for tasks equal to their powers
        but for powers equal to their tasks.

They have run, and themselves have become the miracles,
    who have lost themselves  -  despite everything  -
        in the richness of life that has come to them
            by the grace of God.

Like St. Paul,
they “have fought the good fight” …
they “have finished the race” …
they “have kept the faith.”

Like the Psalmist, they have been able to say,
“I reached for God out of my inner conflicts,
   and God was there
       to give me strength and courage.
          I wept in utter frustration
              and God was near to help and support me.”
                 They have not only kept the faith  ~  the faith has kept them.
  
My late mother was a voracious reader.
    When she was a school girl, riding to school in a horse and buggy,
        and in the winter months, in a horse and cutter,
        she would let the horse, who knew the way, have the lead,
    and she would read the great novels of Charles Dickens and Jane Austin
and the great poems of Tennyson and Browning.

One of her favourite poems was a poem called “If,” 
written by Rudyard Kipling,
which Mom could recite from memory even in her old age.

These are Kipling’s words  ~  a father speaking to a son. 
And no, I have not memorized them as my Mother did.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
That’s what is to be brave in the attempt.
That’s what it is to fight the good fight, to finish the race, to keep the faith.
For when we do,
    it is not only keeping the faith that is seen here.
        The faith keeps us.
            It is by the grace of God
                that we can find the strength and courage
                    to run our race.
And so, what about you?
    and the fight you’re fighting …
        or the race you’re running …
            or the life you’re living?
Let the power of God’s love in Christ for you  ~  empower you.
Let the knowledge that He cares for you  ~  comfort you.
Let the assurance that He is with you every day  ~ 
lift your spirit and bring you hope.
Fight the good fight.  Finish the race.  Keep the faith.
Fill every minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run,
And whatever you face  - win or lose  -    be brave in the attempt.

SOLI  DEO  GLORIA