One of my favorite movies is the academy award winning Chariots of Fire. The film is based on a true story about British sprinters Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell and the struggles they faced as members of the 1924 British Olympic team. As a Jew, Abrahams struggled to be accepted by the Cambridge-Oxford group in control of British amateur athletics, but he did finally make the team. Liddell was born in China to Scottish missionaries, and was a devout Christian. His event was the 100 meters dash, but when the Olympic schedule came out, he learned that one of the qualifying heats was to be run on Sunday. He felt that he had to withdraw, since his Christian principles wouldn’t let him run on Sunday. His withdrawal led to Harold Abrahams winning the Gold medal in the 100m at the Paris Olympics. 
 After Liddell withdrew from the 100m race, a decision was made to have him run in the 400m, and he spent the weeks before the Olympics training for the 400m (the movie depicts him learning about the Sunday heat in the 100m a few days before the race, but that is incorrect). It was not his best event, however, and his best times were considerably slower than those who would be running in Paris. At the Olympics Liddell won bronze in the 200m, and barely qualified for the finals in the 400m. In one of the heats, another runner lowered the world record from 48.2 seconds to 48.0. He received a bad draw of the outside lane for the finals (with the staggered start this meant he wouldn’t be able to see the other runners), and most observers felt that this together with his previous times meant that he had little chance of medaling. He gave his strategy for running the race in the outside lane by saying, “I run the first 200m as hard as I can. Then for the second 200m, with God’s help, I run harder.” This is exactly what he did and won the race by 3 meters (a huge margin) and set a new world record of 47.6 seconds. This record was to hold for 8. He gave some of the credit to the team’s masseuse, who gave him a folded piece of paper. On the paper was a paraphrase of 1 Samuel 2:30: “He that honors me, I will honor.”

 An article in the Manchester Guardian about the British team and the upcoming Olympics discussed Liddell’s decision not to run on Sunday and said, “Liddell has already decided that the race he has chiefly to run in the world is not on the cinder track.” While I respect Liddell for sticking to his Christian principles, that is not the main reason that I view him as one of my Chapter 11 (of the book of Hebrews) Christians; it is this other race. After the Olympics he was famous and widely admired, especially in Scotland, but in 1925 he gave it all up and returned to China as a missionary. He was to serve until 1941, when he was interned by the Japanese at the Wiehsien internment camp. Many who survived that camp say that he was responsible for their survival. He lived out the Sermon on the Mount, caring for others, standing up to guards to obtain food and better treatment, and helping others maintain their faith. Another inmate later wrote, “I’ve never had the good fortune to meet a saint, but he was as close to it as possible.” He died in the camp on February 21, 1945 from Typhoid, already weakened by a brain tumor.

 One reason Liddell’s story means so much to me is that I knew two other fine courageous Christians (as were their wives) who had similar experiences. One was Paul Schmucker, my high school history teacher. He and his wife were Methodist missionaries who spent the war interned by the Japanese in Borneo. The other was Bob Dyer, who was an Associate Dean at Wake Forest. He and his wife were Baptist missionaries, and spent the war at a Japanese internment camp.

 Read 1 Samuel 2:30 and 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Jim

Today’s Readings: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+2%3A30

And

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%209:24-27