Scaling the Heights

     Running a mile? Easy peasy. Probably just as well, too, for the tens of thousands who ran, three-legged walked, bounced, walked backwards or gorilla suited the Sports Relief mile last week. It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time when doctors said no human being could run a mile within four minutes. Then came Roger Bannister. Now, like the hundreds who ramble up Everest every year as if it is a Sunday afternoon stroll in the park, lots of people can run the mile in less than four minutes. Yet there has to be a first time, a barrier to be shattered, the rules to be broken. The rest of us follow, however far behind.

 Fast forward to Gwalior, 24 February 2010 and something else in the sporting arena that they said could never be done. A batsman in a 50-over one-day international cricket match scores 200 runs. But this was no ordinary batsman: this was India’s “Little Master”, Sachin Tendulkar, at the ripe old age of 36 proving that if you believe in yourself, the records are there to be broken. How appropriate that it was Tendulkar who raised the bar of what is possible in a one-day cricket game. He is probably the greatest batsman cricket has ever seen, and I had the pleasure of seeing him hit the England bowling attack all over the ground in a one-day game at Manchester a couple of years ago. On that occasion, I was in the members’ enclosure of Lancashire Cricket Club with Gurdev Singh Bal, a larger-than-life Sikh and Regional Development Officer of ‘Faiths and Beliefs in Further Education’. Knowing Gurdev’s somewhat fanatical tendency to cheer on anything he has a bet on, I reminded him of the rules of entry to the restrained genteel surroundings of the Members Pavilion – no jeans, no shorts, no horns, no drums and above all “Gurdev, remember – no India flags!” I did not think to look at Gurdev’s picnic basket as we entered the ground, but once inside Gurdev triumphantly unfurled the largest India flag you have ever seen. With his usual cheerful smile, Gurdev just said “It’s a tablecloth for our picnic!” It was waved a few times too, I remember, during Tendulkar’s run-of-the-mill fifty or so runs. But it was difficult to protest at the flag, when on the opposite side of the ground was an ever larger flag proclaiming just the abbreviation “Jn 3 16”.

 “Jn 3 16” is a flag that appears at virtually every sporting event, certainly those on TV. It is shorthand for the gospel verse from St John, Chapter 3, verse 16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” To many, it sums up the Christian message in a single sentence, and in telegraphic form “Jn 3 16” is as loud and bold a message as any patriotic banner or flag. The Bible, it seems, was the first publicity campaign to come up with a snappy mission statement – and a few advertising images that we still remember: the rainbow, the burning bush (used as the emblem of every Reformed church except, and don’t ask me why, the Presbyterian Church of Wales), and the cute nativity scene that used to adorn our Christmas cards. “God so loved the world that He gave…” is a snappy slogan. But there’s a problem. Slogans can be misappropriated (like national flags). Bach’s Air on a G String becomes “Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet”, Michelangelo’s David becomes a Monty Python cartoon, and “God so loved the world” becomes “God so loved the church”. Or God so loved us. Or God bless America.

 Easter, Holy Week, is a time to get back to basics. (Whoops, another slogan there!) We approach a week in which Jesus scaled the heights of popularity, adorned as any sports star would be today, only to suffer the depths of isolation and suffering less than a week later. There are some achievements that are truly a one-off: God so loved the world that He gave his only Son. OK, Richard Dawkins, I admit we Christians have messed up that message pretty well over the last thousand years, but the record of God’s love is intact nevertheless. Of course, they said, rising from the dead could never be done. The Christian faith says “Alleluia! Jesus is Risen!” Not only that, but that we can follow too, however far behind when it comes to love.