On April 17 , 100 days before London’s 2012 Summer Olympics, British gymnast Louis Smith looked forward to his chance to thrill the home fans. He told the London Evening Standard: “Having the roar of the crowd behind us will be an amazing feeling.” 

For sporting fans that “amazing feeling” is already being stoked by articles featuring memories of vintage gold: Romania’s Nadia Comaneci scoring the first “perfect 10” in women’s gymnastics in 1976; British decathlete Daley Thompson earning consecutive golds in Moscow and Los Angeles (1980 and 1984); and Jamaican Usain Bolt striding 100 meters in 41 steps in Beijing four years ago.

But the feeling of anticipation is also growing for many in the United Kingdom and around the world who don’t usually pay much attention to sport, because the Olympics are so much more than a great sporting event. They’re a ray of promise that bursts into the global psyche every four years, like sunshine penetrating the incessant mist of disturbing headlines.

Watching the parade of nations at the opening ceremony of each of the Games, reminds us this is what the world should look like all year, every year. And when the Games get going with gusto, there are many gutsy performances—and not only by medal winners. Woody Allen once said: “Eighty percent of success is just showing up.” The founder of the Modern Olympics, Baron de Coubertin, went further. His motto made it clear that it was more important just to take part than to win. Yet Olympians are required to give 100 percent, with some competitors additionally taking home the bonus of a coveted medal. 

We can’t all succeed even in “showing up” in the many London and out-of-London venues (including Manchester, Coventry, and Weymouth Bay). Like Woody Allen, our skills might lie in other directions than sport. Even tickets for those wishing to attend, have been competed for by too many people wanting too few seats. But whether we are competitors or in the stands, there’s a kind of “showing up” the Olympics invite and need—especially from those whose daily “training regime” is practicing the prayerful art of spiritual discernment, and who are willing to flex their “metaphysical muscles” on behalf of the common good.  

Taking up the call to “be there” as a spiritual witness to God’s plan of good for the event, we can help pave the way for the success of these Games of the 30th Olympiad and the 14th Paralympics. Our prayers can also smooth and sustain every event during each of the competitive stages, and help achieve an all-important “legacy” for London once the closing ceremony has faded into historical memory.

To mentally “be there” in prayer in this way, is to love God and our neighbor by knowing that good will prevail over evil in an event that can offer so much of value for humanity despite the fact that the Games have also been used for terrorist and political purposes at times.

There continue to be other concerns surrounding the Games, from the cost of putting them on in times of austerity, to fears of human trafficking amid a heightened demand for prostitution. The temptation for athletes to use artificial enhancement techniques also remains a concern.

Will we accept a call to be spiritual witnesses to the safety, security, and purity of the athletes, officials, and crowds? Are we willing to be meek metaphysical supporters of the victory of character over ego among competitors? Have we the stamina to hold the expectancy that the Christ will rob any temptation to cheat of its deceiving allure by communicating—as it does—God’s message of intrinsic moral self-worth to one and all?

On one level, such problems suggest holes in the fabric of Olympic idealism that would say the “peace and goodwill” they represent can be reversed. From a more spiritual standpoint, such concerns are would-be holes in the very fabric of God’s infinite allness, that would say God, good, is absent and that evil exists to cause and fill that vacuum.  

Christian Science assures us that isn’t so, and unveils the truth of God’s omnipresence and omnipotence. Watching for and denouncing any potential negatives on this basis is one place where all can work together toward victory, each in our own way asserting the truth of universal spirituality over all suggestions that life is merely material.

The Bible includes wonderful sporting analogies to show how this is so in each of our experiences. The Scriptural record of lives lived in relation to God, includes this passage from the book of Hebrews: “Seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (12:1, 2).

Christian Science unveils the truth of God’s omnipresence and omnipotence.

In Olympic competitions, athletes sometimes run to the finishing line or take a last throw despite a painful injury or exhaustion. In the “games” of life we are often “beset” by traits that claim to mark us out as sinners, or by unspiritual attitudes we see in others that we are tempted to believe can obstruct us. In both cases, this metaphor encourages us to keep running forward, knowing we cannot be prevented from making it to the finishing line of seeing and proving God’s eternal grace. This is especially true when we are working toward a healing we hoped would be a sprint but has turned into a long-distance run, or is even becoming something of a marathon.

Like the Olympians looking back to the great performers among their predecessors, we can mentally recall that “cloud of witnesses”—including biblical writers themselves and, more recently, Mary Baker Eddy. Their example proves the powerlessness of sin to prevail, and the flow of ideas constantly coming from God to bring mental and physical freedom.

Unlike the cheers of encouragement and applause during the two weeks of the Games and the 12-day Paralympic events, the “roar” of the cloud of witnesses to spiritual reality is ceaseless. Though silent to the ears, it is mighty in thought. We can feel it in our hearts every time we open them to the Word of God through reading the Bible or Mary Baker Eddy’s
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

Such inner encouragement is needed in the journey Godward, because the “carnal mind”—as the Scriptures name the would-be opposer to all that is good—constantly claims to be close on our heels as we strive to make progress in understanding and demonstrating our real, spiritual nature as God’s children. Like an opponent taunting us, it would attempt to persuade us that we are limited, finite, and mortal—tempted to sin and vulnerable to sickness—when the reality is just the reverse, as demonstrated by Jesus, “the author and finisher of our faith.”

Quoting from and then commenting on that passage from Hebrews, Mary Baker Eddy said: “. . . let us put aside material self and sense, and seek the divine Principle and Science of all healing” (Science and Health, p. 20). Of course, everyone’s deepest calling is to strive daily to do this in order to yield a little more of that limited self for our true divine nature as God’s reflection. It’s not something we do only when the Olympics roll around every four years. Yet qualities learned from global athletes—with their need for constant commitment to honing their skills and their concentration on the task at hand when the time comes to apply them—can be a model to those embracing the practice of Christian Science as their own gift to the world.

Come July 27, I will be unapologetically roaring for “Team GB”—officially, the “British Olympic Association.” Win or lose, I know the athletes representing Great Britain will put their hearts into their task.

But I will also be roaring for another “Team GB”—the team of “God’s beloved”: each of the athletes, giving their all; the fans egging them on; the organizers, workers, and security hosts making it all possible; and TV and Internet viewers around the world whose good thoughts are all contributing to making this event the global ray of sunshine it is divinely foreordained to be.

The roar of the crowd will be loud around the UK as the world focuses its attention on London.

And the silent roar of the cloud of today’s spiritual witnesses will be supporting a great Olympic Games every step of the way.