Not On Sunday

Integrity…it is a word that has lost its significance in many circles of society today.  Perhaps it is because many become lost when trying to define it.  If you ask, the general response is “doing the right thing when no one is watching”…which is not a bad answer.  However, that only scratches the surface.  Webster defines it as uprightness of character (so you can see why the descriptive of doing the right thing when no one is watching rings true).  Webster also defines integrity as undivided; unbroken state; and completeness.  In fact, we derive integrity from the word integer…and if you think back on your  junior high school math class, remember that integer means whole number…not a fraction or a part.  So, integrity naturally signifies whole.  

He was known as the Flying Scotsman for his speed on the track, but there was so much more to the British runner.  His life was the subject of the movie Chariots of Fire.  Eric Liddell was the son of missionaries serving in China.  Born in 1902 in a time of great concern for foreigners living in China, the Liddell family vowed to stay and serve God as they believed they were called.  When Eric was five years old, the family traveled back to Scotland on furlough.  His parents enrolled Eric and his brother in the School for the Sons of Missionaries outside of London, where they stayed while their parents returned to China.  Eric excelled in sports, especially track and field, and in 1918, competing in the school championships, he took first place in the long jump, the quarter-mile, and the 100-yard dash; and took second place in the hurdle race, the cross-country run, and the high jump.

In 1921, Eric enrolled in the University of Edinburgh and before long, was on the track team.  As he improved and won quite often, talk of Eric in the Olympics grew.  Not wanting to risk his amateur status, Eric refused to hire a professional trainer.  (integrity alert, integrity alert)  As the 1924 Olympics neared, Eric found out that the qualifying heats for the event he had trained for, the 100-meter race, would be held on Sunday.  Believing that Sunday was the Lord’s day, he chose not to compete in the 100-meter, his best event.  Instead, he would run the 200-meter and 400-meter races.  Scores of individuals tried to talk Eric out of his decision to not run on Sunday.  The British Olympic Committee even tried to persuade Eric by telling him that the race would not be until the afternoon, leaving him plenty of time to attend church in the morning.  It did not work.  (Can you say integrity?)  Eric believed in honoring God, and nothing would dissuade him from that call.  The British even tried to get the race moved to another day by appealing to the International Olympic Committee, but was denied.  The race would go as planned, without Scotland’s best hope for a medal.

The finals for the 200-meter was held on July 9.  Eric took home the bronze medal, Scotland’s first-ever Olympic medal.  The next day, Eric ran a qualifier for 400-meter finals.  He won, but when the lane announcements were made for the finals, Eric got the outside lane, the lane most runners tried to avoid at all costs.

When the starting pistol fired, the runners were off.  Eric bolted into the lead, but his pace was too fast.  Those watching knew he would not be able to maintain this pace for the entire race.  But, remarkably, he did.  He not only maintained his lead, he increased it.  In the final 100 meters, Eric stretched his lead from three meters to five.  He won the first gold medal for Scotland, and in record-breaking fashion.  His time was 47.6 seconds…a world record.  When asked how he had so fast, Eric said, “The first half I ran as fast as I could.  The second half I ran faster with God’s help.” He had shocked the world, but they were in for an even bigger one.

After the Olympics, Eric announced he was going to hang up his running shoes  and become a missionary to China.  Everything was good until 1937, when Japan declared war on China.   Eric and his family lived with the danger of being killed during Japanese bombing missions.  Eventually, because of safety concerns, Eric sent his wife and two daughters to Canada.  As the ship left the port, it would be the last time they would see each other again.  Months later the Japanese took over the region Eric was living in, and refused to let him and the other missionaries perform their work.  In March 1943, things became even worse.  All foreigners were loaded onto railroad cars and transported to Weihsien and interred there as prisoners.  While a prisoner, Eric taught camp school and organized various sports.

Eric began to suffer severe headaches in the fall of 1944.  A doctor in the camp thought perhaps Eric was suffering from a nervous breakdown.  A few months later, Eric suffered from a stroke, but was soon back on his feet.  But then on February 21, Eric slipped into a coma, and died that night.  An autopsy showed that Eric had an inoperable brain tumor.  

Eric Liddell is remembered today as the runner who refused to run on Sunday.  At a dinner honoring the runner shortly after the 1924 Olympics, a civic leader from Edinburgh, commented that Eric was then remembered as a young man who “put his whole career as a runner in the balance, and deemed it as small dust, compared to remaining true to his principles.”  The Flying Scotsman…Integrity…Undivided…Whole.