IN THE ANCIENT GREEK WORLD, the Olympic Games were held every four years on Mount Olympus, the Sanctuary of Zeus. There were no team sports, but rather each man set out singly into the contest, one against the other.
The sports were javelin and discus throwing, sprints, long jump and races. Wrestling and boxing were violent contests with only minimal restrictions. Athletes entered the contests naked and were considered to be part god and part human in a world of otherwise inferior and weaker mortals.
But now Jesus is the naked athlete, on Calvary, not Olympus. His fight isn't with a visible enemy - he put that idea away in the garden of his arrest. But Jesus fights an invisible enemy.
Someone might say, "O then it's all just a metaphor." But metaphor doesn't mean that something is not real. Metaphor means that something is most real. Jesus contests with whatever is dark, sinful, evil, menacing, self-destructive. Jesus naked, went to the mat for some part of my life that had gotten too much power and needed to be taken down.
Silence
Our Father Who Art in Heaven...
Hail Mary full of grace...
Glory be to the Father...
