Mark Ranzinger, MD
When The Impossible is Not
Some things seem impossible, such as the four-minute mile. For years, the four-minute mile was considered not merely unreachable, but (according to physiologists of the time) dangerous to the health of any athlete who attempted it.
On a cold English morning on May 6, 1954, a 25 year old medical student at Oxford was awaiting a run on the university’s field at Iffley Road before a small crowd of 1,000, mostly students.
Two years of disappointments rose up before Roger Bannister. He was running with the 2 year old memory of disappointment still burning within him. He had hoped and had been expected to win the 1,500 meters, at the 1952 Olympics. Even the Duke of Edinburgh had planned his visit to Helsinki to coincide with the final run. But, instead, Bannister finished a very disappointing fourth. Only a remarkable performance down the road could efface that terrible failure.
In the weeks leading up to this event, he approached the task with scientific vigor; setting a fierce training schedule for himself, with workouts conducted each day during his lunch break.
The world record was 4:01.4. But Bannister wasn’t running against anyone, only against the clock. He was paced by a pair of “rabbits”: fellow Oxonian Chris Chataway, and former Cambridge University steeplechaser Chris Brasher. These two led the way.
The run was all the more remarkable considering that he was running, the New York Times said, in a 15 mph crosswind that gusted to 25 mph. Bannister stayed close to Brasher for the first two laps around the quarter mile track, clocking 1:58.2. When Chataway rushed to the lead for the third lap, Bannister was on his heels. His three-quarter mile time was 3:00.5.
Bannister “bided his time until about 300 yards from the tape,” the AP reported, “when he urged himself to a supreme effort. With a machine like, seemingly effortless stride he drew away steadily from Chataway and, head thrown back slightly, he breasted the cool, stiff wind on the last turn to come driving down the homestretch to climax his spectacular performance.” 1
That four-minute mile just seemed impossible. But Bannister did the “impossible,” and he did it in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds!
Let me tell you something else that seems impossible: gospel medical evangelism to the world as part of the last great gospel call and cry. But it will happen, even if not with the ease of tweeting, texting or the Internet. No, it will be with hands of pained grace, with minds willing to engage in brutal spiritual warfare, and a calling out to God in love and in suffering intercession as never before seen.
As I contemplate this whole mission to the world I, like Sara, laugh. Why, it’s so absurd, so impractical, so futile, so unreasonable, so impossible. Yet “impossible” things happen – in dreams, in storybooks, in fairy tails – and in the Bible. Babies are born when the mothers are way past childbearing age; slaves walk between a split sea; water comes from granite, and bread comes from Heaven. Most amazing of all, God becomes man who dies in our stead, and through Him men and women become new creations in Christ.
“Go into all the world and preach (this gospel medical evangelism message that I have lived and shown you).” Verse 26 tells us who Jesus was talking to: just 11 flawed human beings much like each of us.
Impossible? That’s what they told Roger Bannister. And if Bannister can do the “impossible,” what can we do with a God for whom “nothing is impossible” (Luke 1:37)?