Thrill of the Game

Along with several million other non sporty types, I watched yesterday’s Wimbledon finals at home on the sofa. And what a game it was, an extended moment of competitive grace, in which the best which human beings have to give of themselves was given not only by the players, but by the spectators. It was a graced event. The energy and speed of play, what Gerard Manly Hopkins would have called ‘the mastery of the thing’, had something of the transcendent about it, as did the razor sharp intelligence reflected in the stillness of Novak Djokovic’s face during those brief intervals of respite afforded to the players between games. 

During the tournament, different levels of tension braced not only the players against each other, but all of us watching, into a kind of graced silence in which each moment was held in its own completeness. The competition belonged to us all, as we willed victory for our man, whosever side we were on. For me, looking back on it, this willing and longing for ultimate victory was not simply a matter of wanting one player to be defeated and the other to win. It was a far wider, all encompassing and profound desire than hoping that Andy Murray would be this year’s Wimbledon champion. It had something of the transcendent about it. I wondered if it was alright to pray for him to win. Where did God stand in my own excitement at Andy’s every advantage point, every game won and at his final winning of the championship? 

St. Paul writes that ‘God shows no partiality’. Rather, he joins in the yearning which is in each one of us. In the abiding Spirit of Christ, God yearns with us in our competing for excellence. He graces all that we strive to become, or yearn for someone else to become, with an all encompassing love. It is a love that contains all yearnings. God in Christ is intimately bound up in them, drawing out of us, whether or not we think of ourselves as ‘religious’, something resembling praise, supplication and gratitude. What was Andy Murray doing and thinking as he fell to his knees in the moment of victory? Expressing incredible relief and overwhelming joy, giving thanks, responding in some way to the reality of God’s presence. That is prayer, however you look at it. It is a response to a greater love at work in the magnitude of the moment.

Those few agonisingly wonderful hours of tennis were about hope sustained and the faithfulness of God being played out in a seemingly ‘secular’ context. It was being played out as resurrection. Resurrection is not about raising corpses. It is about returning us to ourselves as a new creation. So Andy Murray’s home town, Dunblane, will no longer be remembered for the tragedy of the past, for death, but for the grace and beauty of Andy’s playing, for his ‘mastery of the thing’, for the healing grace of God working through him into victory and life. He will go down in tennis history, for sure, but more importantly, he will be remembered for giving Dunblane back to itself.