Why must cyclists take drugs? What's the fun in that?

I don't often get very angry, and Lance Armstrong's alleged involvement in 'the most sophisticated, professional and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen' has left me more bemused, disappointed and saddened than angry. After all, when those of us who do sport for the sheer enjoyment of overcoming (in part only) our own limitations, without chemical enhancement, I wonder where Armstrong's enjoyment of the sport, sense of humanity and personal pride went to. Can you win a race and be proud when the drug won, really?

I did get angry, however, when I heard Alex Dowsett's response on the news. The 24 year old British cyclist said that he believed that Lance Armstrong remains 'a legend of the sport' despite the doping accusations against the American.

What's worse, his remarks were made not because he doesn't believe the accusations. And I suspect that those accusations are fairly accurate. The US Drug Authority responsible said that it was as strong a case as any they had ever brought. Dowsett went on to say: 'He is still a legend of the sport. A guy who had cancer came back and won the Tour de France. It's not really important and I really don't think it matters what I think.'

Not important? Not his call? Of course it is. He is being listened to, watched and admired by a whole new generation of budding cyclists in this country, and as a role model he can't be neutral. What is it about this celebrity culture of ours that so craves victory that nothing else matters?

Over the past year, in my feeble 63 year old way, I have enjoyed discovering that I can run, just. 8.5 minute miles are about as much as I can realistically manage. But I have found myself childishly delighted, and running has brought me such joy - no fame though. In running, the bonus has been the discovery that it gives me the quietest and most solitary place in the universe, a place I've been looking for unconsciously for years.

And now, to cap it all, I have a distinct sense that running is a gift that I have to offer God. I can't explain it any better than that, but it has come to me that when I run, I am being truly myself, and that can't but delight God. So, please, please, don't let's allow hubris (overweening pride) to overwhelm us. It is our humanity and our pain that we celebrate when we run the race, not some fictive superhuman image.

Fourth Station: Peter denies Jesus

Just then a rooster crowed a second time, and Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, ‘Before the rooster crows two times, you will say three times that you do not know me.’ And he broke down and cried. [GNB Mark 14.72]

One verse says so much. One moment of panic changed Peter’s life; one slip, which actually made no difference to Jesus’ journey towards Calvary, though it made it an even lonelier journey.

Imagine your sins being written into the narrative of God’s redeeming work with humanity. We could let our imaginations run riot over Peter’s thoughts now: a wry smile perhaps, or we hope that he’s so taken up with looking at the glory of God that all that’s past?

However, it’s better to look at our response to shame, our sense of letting ourselves down, which is where this episode left Peter. He’s the rock on which the church is to be built. Certainly in one major tradition of the scripture material, he’s the first apostle, but he’s a fractured vessel, a cracked pot, a blunt instrument for the work of God. In essence, he’s St Punctured Pride Peter. And so are we.

We spend quite a lot of our time thinking of ourselves as fundamentally OK folks, glad to be blessed by the grace of God. And then the momentary lapse which cannot be called back. The words are out in the public domain, and the relationship will never be the same again. At the point of our shame, we know ourselves as we actually are before God, naked, empty, lost, the shame of Adam and Eve is our shame.

Extraordinarily, this point, when Peter weeps, when we lament our lost innocence (an innocence we never had) is the point at which God really begins to do business with us. We discover grace: love that does not measure us by our actions; the gift of reconciliation though we don’t deserve it. And in our tears, as we watch Jesus watching us, we find a new and more honest way to live, the way of the redeemed sinner, ever indebted, ever grateful, never doubtful of God, because it does not depend any more on anyone’s opinion of our actions, not even ours.

Lord Jesus, as Peter betrayed you,

you experienced the double agony of love rejected and friendship denied:

be with those who know no friends and are rejected by society.

You understood the fear within Peter:

help us to understand the anxieties of those who fear for their future.

To you, Jesus, who gazed with sadness at your lost friend,

be honour and glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit,

now and for ever.