Three Golds!!!

I am sitting on a very wet, dreary Sunday afternoon and although on my own I wonder who else in the road outside can hear me cheering and shouting at the TV.

I’m watching the Winter Olympics 2026 and we have just won 2 gold medals in one day! It’s never happened before since 1924 when the Winter Olympics started. 

Did we ever think that was possible? I love sport. I love watching sportsmen and women competing. For every single one of those competing the Olympics is the culmination of years and years of hard, hard training. 

Every winner has known what it is to lose. Because you can’t win without losing. 

Sometimes you even win when you look like you’re losing. 

Yesterday morning in church Mark reminded us we are on the edge of starting Lent this coming week with Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. We begin the count down, the road to Easter. 

As we prepare to pilgrimage along that path for another year or maybe for the first time, we know a destination. We will reach Good Friday and arrive at a hill with 3 crosses bearing the dying bodies of 3 men.

Golgotha is the place of the skull, when the sky goes dark, we hear again the cries of Jesus forgiving those whose actions had led to his crucifixion and his last breath . 

This all shouts at the world devastation and what seems a desperate losing position. That Good Friday the world fell silent and there was no hope to see Jesus receive the winning medal and stand on the winning podium. Death was the end. 

But we live on this side of history.

We know three days later there was a different story, The stone was rolled away and his tomb was empty. Many people witnessed that Jesus is alive. This was not the loss all had thought.

Sometimes you win when you look like you’re losing. 

As we start our own 2026 journey through Lent maybe take time to reflect on our own personal life events when we are feeling that we are losing. You may feel hopeless, lost and losing. 

Be present to the risen power of Jesus that reaches us each day.

Let’s keep practising life daily and let us remember that when Jesus rose, death lost, love wins.

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God”

1 Corinthians 1.v 18