30th April, 2006

SERIOUS SPORT

During the week, by sheer chance, I found myself watching the World Cup Final. No, not the one taking place in Berlin in July! This one was taking place in the park at the bottom of the street. OK, it wasn’t really the world cup final, but I’m fairly sure that the one that will take place in Germany won’t have half the intensity and commitment, or, to be honest, entertainment value, of this one among the ten-year-olds in the park.

It was difficult to make out which teams were playing, as jerseys from literally all over the world were being worn. Do you notice that nowadays children rarely just wear team jerseys - it must also be decorated with the name of their hero? And of course many of them were just in their shirts and pullovers. (Which reminds me of one of my favourite definitions – what’s a ‘pullover’? – it’s a garment worn by children when their mothers are feeling cold! But I digress.) I had the impression that sometimes the players themselves weren’t sure which side they were on. There was no referee – all disputes were sorted by shouting louder than your opponents.

The area they were playing in hadn’t got a blade of grass, but was just a rough surface with lots of loose pebbles. I winced every time I saw a player going to ground, with funny bones being jarred and ankles being twisted and knees being scraped. But there was no staying down, unlike their heroes, who often act as if they were shot in the back, rolling around waiting for the medical staff to apply the magic sponge. No, it was up straight away, a little bit of rubbing to the affected area, and back into the fray. One who was big into the Easter mystery might have said that suffering and rising again seemed to be second nature to them.

But it wasn’t second nature to the disciples in our Gospel today. They had come to terms with the suffering and death of Jesus. Even stories that He had risen hadn’t got them overly excited – they were just standing around talking about it. But when He suddenly turns up in their midst they descend into “a state of alarm and fright”. Jesus acknowledged their state of agitation and doubt, and invited them to “touch me and see for yourselves”. And when they realise that it was indeed true “their joy was so great that they could not believe it”.

And isn’t that part of the perversity of human nature – we’re so often more ready to believe bad news than good news? It’s not helped sometimes by the lack of publicity that good news generally gets. And that was never how Jesus wanted it to be – He wanted the Good News to be “preached to all the nations” – which is where we come in. We’re invited to allow ourselves to be touched by the mystery of His forgiving love, to see for ourselves what it’s like to be truly filled with the joy of the Risen life – to have just a little of the intensity and commitment of those young footballers, and to pass it on to others. That’s got to be our GOAL. (Sorry!)