I'm not sure what to make of it all, but I keep seeing conspicuous symbolic providential allusions to the word of God as I ride and even as I watched the outcome of Stage 13 to Lourdes in the Tour de France.
Remember "Bo knows..."? Thor knows cobbles. Thor knows sprints. Thor knows TTT's . Now... Thor knows gigantic mtn passes!!! @tomdanielson
I think Thor Hushovd showed today why he wears the rainbow bands of World Champion. Incredible ride.. Nice work by my teammate Lars Bak too! @MarkCavendish
What's a pro cyclists worst nightmare? Racing solo for TdF stage win and knowing Thor Hushovd is chasing you. Fear of God of Thunder. @millarmind (David Millar)Twitter haiku contest celebrating THOR's victory. Best haiku gets a free world champion jersey. Use #THORhaiku (cc @Garmin @Ride_Argyle) @Ride_Argyle (Garmin-Cervelo)Hushovd, un ciclista impresionante (Carlos Sastre)http://fb.me/XxmN2pVjThor you a machine.... I done the pull in the gruppetto to get up the climb. I was already thinking on tom. Stage. It will be dam hard. (Fabian Cancellara)Another stage done & dusted. I tried to make that break today, but couldn't get a move to stick. Congrats to Thor again, bloody impressive. (Simon Gerrans)Fast start on some tiny roads today. HEAPS of Aussies out and about! Thor is incredible hey? #TdF (Cadel Evans)Just saw highlights of todays #TdF stage. Legendary ride by Thor. Extra mtn training pays off. #GravityDefyingViking (Robbie McEwen)
Even Cycle Sport Magazine, whose (often cynical and always British) authors called Lourdes "our least favorite stage town in Tour history," adding "What works for religious pilgrims doesn't work for followers of bike races," called his stage win miraculous.
I was surprised to hear that no tour stage had finished in Lourdes since 1948. I remember hearing it mentioned several times while watching the Tour over the years, and now that I think of it, particularly in 1994, when the race took a rest day there after the previous day's finish at Hautacam. Knowing Lourdes is a destination for Catholic pilgrims because of apparitions of the virgin Mary, I was intrigued when I heard that the victor in 1948 was Gino Bartali, who as a devout Catholic acquired the nickname "Il Pio" (the pious) and whose rivalry with Fausto Coppi divided Italy in the late 1940s. As I thought more on the way the race played out in stage 13, I almost couldn't believe the conspicuous religious symbolism of it all. Here's a summary of events:
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It's fascinating that Thor Hushovd, nicknamed "the god of thunder", and who in the opinion of the world of cycling (see tweets above), lives up to the title, won the stage. Not only did "god" win the stage, but he did it wearing this:
The rainbow bands of the world champion. Since I've been thinking about rainbows and light lately, I was aware of their presence in manifestations of God's presence, particularly in apocalyptic visions of the "Son of Man" and Jesus the Messiah in his exaltation:
26 And above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. 27 And upward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him. 28 Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the glory of the LORD. (Ezekiel 1:26-28)
2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. 3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. (Revelation 4:2-3)
10:1 Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. (Rev 10)
That verse almost sounds like it was written to describe the picture above. I'll spare you bicycle-related speculation over the fact that Ezekiel's vision also included mysterious wheels with "tall and awesome rims". I'm not sure about the identity of the "mighty angel" either, but his description is quite similar to John's description of the Son of Man, the living one who died and is alive forevermore, in Revelation 1, who is Jesus Christ in his exalted state.
The idea of a "god of thunder" may seem primitive and superstitious to us, and at best rather "Old Testament", if you will, but consider these descriptions of God's voice from Sinai to the Apocalypse:
Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. (Exodus 19:19-20)
The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over many waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. (Psalm 29:3-4)
The Hebrew word qol may be translated both "voice" and "thunder". Might this point to the nature of the original voice that spoke the universe into existence and is identified with the divine Son?
"Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. (John 12:28-29)
From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God. (Revelation 4:5)
All of this suggests not that thunder is God, or that God sits on clouds throwing lightning bolts, but that the elements of nature that stir in us the deepest wonder and fear, among which are rainbows and thunder, reveal something of the beauty and power of God. And so the "god of thunder" wrapped in rainbows riding victoriously into the sacred city was a subtle reminder of that powerful beauty.
In addition, Thor was pursued in the closing kilometers by David Mancoutie. This stood out to me because David is described in the Bible as "the man after God's own heart" (1 Sam 13:14; Acts 13:22), who said to God "my soul followeth hard after Thee" (Ps 63:8 KJV) or "my soul clings to You" (ESV). When it appeared Mancoutie and Hushovd might catch and pass Jeremy Roy, Mancoutie stopped helping with the chase. In cycling, riders take turns leading and letting the other man draft, and usually one rider doesn't stand a chance of staying clear of two riders working together. Mancoutie became a cling-on to Hushovd's wheel: he didn't want to help chase down his countryman, and he stood a better chance of winning the stage himself by sitting in the draft and waiting for a chance to attack if the race should re-group.
They were chasing down Jeremy Roy, who was actually the main instigator of the ten-man break that stayed away for most of the stage, and amazingly, as of stage 13, had already spent over 600 kilometers in breakaways during the Tour. He was the sentimental hero of the day, and even of the entire race to that point, but his only rewards were a few "most aggressive rider" prizes (the Tour's equivalent of a pat on the back) and after Friday, the lead in the King of the Mountains competition. He was a picture of frustration: as he crossed the line, he beat his chest in agony as Paul Sherwen commented "I know, it hurts in heart". He'd repeatedly tried so hard, so many times, and came up short again:
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"Possibly in a couple of weeks - or even months - I will think that this was a super stage, but right now my disillusionment is too big. I am not a champion, so I have to play with the peloton to try and get a stage win. And again I failed today," Roy said in an overly harsh assessment of his bid. (Taken from: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cycling/more-than-600km-out-front-but-stage-career-eludes-roy-20110716-1himh.html#ixzz1SRAIMucB)
Jeremy sounds like Jeremiah the prophet riding a bicycle:
Jeremiah's heart broke because he stood between God and his wayward people: God would not let him compromise his message, and the people would not listen. But that's not the end of Jeremiah's story; God spoke through this broken-hearted man to foretell the day when He would heal and renew the hearts of all his people:I am the man who has seen affliction
under the rod of his wrath;
he has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light;
surely against me he turns his hand
again and again the whole day long. (Lamentations 3:1-3, see also the rest of the chapter)
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31)But even this renewal of hearts required a broken heart. Jesus said this new covenant was brought about "in his blood", that is, in his agonizing death on the cross, God's own heart was broken, quite literally, for the sin of His people.
What does this have to do with the Tour de France? More than you might think. Even though Jeremy didn't win the stage, his broken-hearted and futile initiative set the stage for the true champion. More than that, he learned a little more of the suffering it takes to be such a champion. Even for Thor, there was a time when he didn't chase down riders at will and triumph over the tour like a god. Read this report from stage 2 of the 2002 Tour:
After their lousy day yesterday, Credit Agricole was glad to have big Norwegian Thor Hushovd in the break. The powerful blond from Arendal was doing a lot of work in the break, but suddenly, after 113 km in Lockweiler, terrible, intense cramps seized the Norwegian's legs. As Berges and Chavanel hammered away, so began Hushovd's nightmare. Perhaps unused to the sudden summer heat, beset by severe leg cramps, the big Norwegian went backwards, straight through the peloton and out the back, where eventually he had to stop with 31 km to go and have his director sportif Roger Legeay massage his pain racked legs before continuing. (Taken from http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/road/2002/tour02/?id=results/stage02)
I remember watching his suffering on television and feeling the same sympathy I felt Friday for Jeremy Roy. Thor finished dead last that day, in 189th place, almost ten minutes behind 188th place, and almost 20 minutes behind the winner. Who won the stage? None other than Oscar Freire, who at the time was world champion and wearing the rainbow jersey:
That was the only other time the reigning world champion has won a Tour stage since 1981, when Bernard Hinault won five. Maybe we're onto something with this "God shows up with rainbows" idea.
It seems the god of thunder's experience in the Tour from then until now is rather illustrative of how cycling, and even all of life, works. Humility comes before honor, suffering before glory, the cross before the crown. On the surface, and in the news, all we see is the glory of a conquering hero, but rarely do we ponder the way to reach that glory. Maybe Jeremy's agonizing defeat this year illustrates the truth of his own name (which essentially means "Yah exalts (a) King"):
6 For not from the east or from the west
and not from the wilderness comes lifting up,
7 but it is God who executes judgment,
putting down one and lifting up another. (Psalm 75)
7 He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
8 to make them sit with princes,with the princes of his people. (Psalm 113)
Isn't it interesting that the Tour visits the city regarded as a holy site to many Christians, and the three top finishers race as if, and in the case of Hushovd, dress as if, they're acting out their biblical namesakes? Maybe we don't have visions of God like Ezekiel and John, but the same God who dwells in unapproachable light and speaks with earth-shaking force still drops hints.
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