Keep Keeping On

Some stories touch us deeply and cause us to cheer and celebrate. The story of Eric Moussambani Malonga is one of those.

When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) gave the tiny country of Equatorial Guinea a wild card for the 100-meter freestyle competition at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, Moussambani prepared to become an Olympic athlete. He learned to swim only eight months before the Olympic Games, and he swam for the first time in his life in an Olympic-sized swimming pool (50 meters) in Sydney, since he had only a 15-meter pool to practice in in his home country.

In his qualifying heat on September 19, 2000, he was to swim against two other swimmers with the slowest qualifying times. Both men, Karim Baré from Nigeria and Farkhod Oripov from Tajikistan, produced false starts and were consequently disqualified. This meant that Moussambani would have to swim alone. The event video[1] is emotionally moving. Following the starting gun, Moussambani jumps alone into the pool and swims the first 50 meters. After his turn, one can see that he is struggling. As he faces the last 50 meters the crowd in the large Olympic swim hall rises to their feet and the noise is deafening as people cheer on the lone swimmer struggling to finish the race. Moussambani makes it to the finish in a time of 1:52.72 and wins his heat with the slowest time in Olympic history, more than double the time of the 100-meter freestyle Olympic champion of Sydney 2000, Pieter van den Hoogenband.[2]

Winning Means Arriving

This Olympic race reflects our own spiritual journeys. In Hebrews 12:1, 2, the Christian life is compared to an athlete running a race (or swimming a heat). The Message Bible paraphrase invites us to listen to this familiar text with new appreciation: “Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever.”[3]

We are grateful that we, too, are not running (or swimming) alone, but that we are part of a body of believers who cheer us, encourage us, remind us, and challenge us to hang on and keep going.

Any athlete needs to be able to focus on finishing the race. The 100-meter freestyle qualifying heat of the Sydney 2000 Olympics won by Moussambani demonstrates that one can be a winner—even with the slowest time in Olympic history. But finishing a race doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Hebrews speaks about “these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on.” This refers to the “heroes of faith” introduced in the previous chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. We read about some dubious characters in this chapter, including Samson, Rahab, even Abraham and David. Their races weren’t always perfect; they included deviations and detours. What links them all, however, is their faith and trust in God—even in the face of life-threatening challenges and obstacles. Because they successfully ran the race (or swam the lane), we can do it as well if we decide to never quit. Jesus is described here as He who began and will also finish this race with us. Our focus needs to be on Him.

We can watch the epic race of Eric Moussambani on YouTube. His surprised face when he hits the block at the end of the pool is a good reminder that it wasn’t his extraordinary skills, strength, or even his preparation that secured the win. As he struggled on toward the goal it was the cheers and support of the crowd that gave him the energy that he needed to persevere. We are grateful that we, too, are not running (or swimming) alone, but that we are part of a body of believers who cheer us, encourage us, remind us, and sometimes challenge us to hang on and keep going. Ultimately, we reach the finish line because we have Someone who has already run the race and walked the path and whose grace and forgiveness will finally carry us over the line. That’s something we can rely on.

[1] You can watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLOwE2HNLOM or simply google Eric Moussambani Malonga.

[2] The pertinent facts can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Moussambani.

[3] From The Message, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, represented by Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.