JUST FINISH

“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”*

In 1982, Julie Moss, a 24 year old California college student, wanted an easy project to complete her Physical Education degree. One day she saw a broadcast of the Ironman Triathlon held in Hawaii and was drawn into the idea of trying it. Although not highly competitive in sports, Julie surfed the California coastline, felt herself to be in good shape, and figured entering the Ironman would be a straightforward pick for her project. It looked like fun.

Ironman’s Triathlon begins with 2 ½ miles of swimming in the Pacific, 112 miles of biking inland, and ends with a 26 mile marathon. Julie trained for each of these events, but did not reach the point of completing any of these distances before the actual race. How hard could it be?

Despite or perhaps because of such a breezy attitude, at the end of the biking leg Julie found herself in second place. The woman in lead, Kathleen McCartney, had slowed down after spraining her Achilles heel, and not long into the marathon, Julie pulled a mile ahead of Kathleen.

The unexpected success began a series of shifting attitudes in Julie’s mind. The competitive drive kicked in first. “I’m good at something, and somebody is trying to take something I am now attached to.”(1) Maybe she was actually going to win the women’s triathlon, to own the race.

Four hundred meters to the finish line, Julie’s body began to break down. She had not taken in sufficient nutrition and water and now came a “train wreck”, as she put it. Her paced slowed considerably, then ABC network cameras witnessed her legs buckle like a drunken sailor and her body crumple to the road. She formed a kind of tripod with her forearms and pushed herself up, hobbled a ways, trotted a few steps. She fell and dragged herself up several times. At last she collapsed onto her back, legs and arms splayed in utter exhaustion. This must be what dying felt like. Moments before, Julie’s thought was “this race is mine;” now she was of a mind to surrender to the relief of lying there. “I quit.”

Then out of her peripheral vision, she saw tennis shoes and legs go by. Kathleen McCartney, who had been 20 minutes behind her, swooshed to the finish line. Julie could see that finish line; it was just ten feet away. Julie’s whole being became still, and she heard a voice in her head say, “Get up. Just keep moving forward.”

Well, she couldn’t get up.

But…she could crawl. She later said she knew “my life was going to be different; I was changing. I made a deal with myself. I don’t care if it hurts; I don’t care if it’s messy; I don’t care how it looks. I would finish.” On hands and knees, literally one inch at a time Julie indeed moved forward amid TV cameras and cheering spectators. Finally she lay down belly up and flopped over that white line.

Enthusiasts of the event have expressed that Julie changed the nature of the Ironman forever. Competitively speaking, she did not win, but with every fiber of her being, she owned that race. It was not pretty, yet her struggle became her glory. Over the years people have told her that seeing her that day on TV inspired them to get up off the couch and challenge themselves in new ways. Through her, one of the Ironman mottos became “Just Finish.”

(1) Quotes taken from an interview with Julie on RadioLab (http://www.radiolab.org/2010/apr/05/limits-of-the-body/).

*G.K. Chesterton (British Christian apologist, humorist, and man of letters – 1874-1936)
**See Julie's race

She Was There

Of all people whom Jesus freed from demon possession, one woman stands out. She’d accumulated seven demons. Today we might disbelieve a devil had anything to do with her problems; they were rather a host of physical or psychological illnesses. Serious, indeed, but possession?

Ask several of my friends who have dabbled with the occult if there is a not-so-holy spirit world and they’d tell you. The dark powers have a mesmerizing way of taking hold. However, the reason the Son of God came to earth was “that He might destroy the works of the devil.” To Satan, those are fighting words. But he lost the battle over Mary Magdalene.

Any demon, let alone seven, would have caused Mary immense torment. The Church Fathers said that the possessed are most pitiable of all suffering people, because their ability to will is nearly stripped away. They are marionettes under another will that never wishes them well. In contrast, when Jesus cast out her malevolent puppeteers, Mary Magdalene experienced not only that he was a man of unequaled power, but unequaled love. He gave her freedom to be and to choose.

Her choice? Great fidelity and love for her deliverer. She stood at the forefront of devoted women disciples who were often with Jesus and the twelve male disciples when he went through towns to preach his Good News.

Ah, yes, there was strong love between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. So the old tales resurrected by Dan Brown and others claimed she married him and had his children whose descendents became royalty in France. The postmodern world ridicules the idea that there can or even should be intense love between adults without it being sexual. Yet Christ was passionate for all people at a level most of us don’t understand. He prayed for us “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us.”

Mary was there when the Pharisees put pressure on Jesus, likely there when Pilate turned him over for execution. The Gospels reported she witnessed his crucifixion, but she must have first seen him drag his cross up the Jerusalem road Latin Christians later named Via Delarosa, “Road of Suffering.”  She saw him fall from pain, blood loss, exhaustion, the weight of the wooden beam. She felt a small gladness when soldiers forced Simon to help carry that beam. She supported Jesus’ mother on that Via until they reached the Place of the Skull, where executions took place.

From a distance Mary Magdalene watched the soldiers nail and bind Jesus to the cross, winch it up, and drop it into the hole. She moved close when it was feasible, saw Jesus struggle for every breath, and heard every word he gasped. She stayed through the darkness at noon and felt the earth quake. She joined the deep mourning of creation over the death of its Maker as he gave up his spirit.

While the twelve disciples of the Savior, with the exception of John, had betrayed, denied, or abandoned Him, Jesus’ mother, Mary Magdalene and other women remained by his side. How could they bear to witness all this horror and injustice and not totally collapse with grief & rage?

For Mary Magdalene, somehow the strength of demons had been transformed into the strength of faith. She was faithful to him not only in days of fame, but in extreme humiliation and insult to the bitter end—and beyond.

Mary stayed at the cross while Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took the body down, and accompanied them to the cemetery so she knew where to return to finish anointing the body. She watched as they covered over the cave with a large stone. Only then did she reluctantly leave because of Passover and Sabbath curfew laws.

Barely after the Sabbath was over Mary hurried to the tomb. She was the first person there. Is it any surprise then that she was the first person to see her dear Rabbi, alive, and speaking her name in that tone she knew so well? She was the first to go back to where the Disciples were hiding out and to tell them, “The Lord is Risen.”

St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles, the first in the world to preach the Resurrection.

The Disciples judged Mary’s report as hysterical woman talk, and Jesus had to appear to them several times before they comprehended. Obviously their slowness did not mean they lost out. Yet somehow they missed out on the unadulterated delight of the one disciple who never left.

I am far away from that time. I am one of billions who have not seen nor heard Christ, whose hands have never touched him. But I can be one of those whom Jesus praises, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe.” After all, I know something of the love of the risen Lord repairing broken areas in my life. I can emulate Mary Magdalene, my Apostle in faithfulness and devotion. Perhaps I might catch a spark of her relief and joy in that Easter Sunday garden — he’s not dead, he is risen!