The Special Olympics began in the early 1960’s as a series of small sports camps for the intellectually disabled but has grown to involve more than 4.5 million athletes from over 170 countries. I suspect that we have all been touched by the ever-present smiles on their faces as they joyfully compete. We see the thrill of victory in simple participation, but rarely see the agony of defeat when they lose. Truth be told, they model the true athletic experience better than we do because they don’t measure success by gold medals and scholarships, but by the opportunity to share the athletic stage with the rest of us. It is a glorious reminder of God’s power made manifest in weakness.

While medical technology has allowed us to care for many of the intellectual and physical disabilities of these athletes, it has also made it possible for us to disqualify them before they even reach the starting blocks. Eighty percent of all fetuses diagnosed with Down’s syndrome are aborted. Apparently our society didn’t get the memo that these little babies were future Olympic athletes. These contestants will never get the chance to compete because somebody decided that they weren’t worth training. We wouldn’t kill the Jamaican bobsled team because they were winter challenged, so why do we think it is OK to end the lives of these physically and mentally challenged athletes?

The 1972 Munich Olympics will be remembered for the horrible terrorist attack that took the lives of eleven Israeli athletes. Where is the outrage in 2015 as our culture sneaks into the Special Olympic Village disguised as family planners and goes from womb to womb ending the hopes and dreams of these future Olympians?

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ (Matthew 25: 40)