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In the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, the runner Harold Abrahams sits quietly in the changing room, holding the Olympic 100-metre gold medal he’s just won. Friends burst in to congratulate him, confused that he’s sitting reflectively alone in the corner. But his best friend holds them back, whispering, ‘You don’t realise how difficult it is to win.’

VE Day evokes a diversity of emotions. There’s the clenched fist of conquest. There’s the whoop of joy, jumping into the fountain and kissing the stranger. There’s relief at the end of sacrifice. But there’s also grief for those who didn’t live to see this day.

The experience of victory entails a further, rueful element: how long will the victors be able to keep the fruits of their conquest? Will it be a token victory, in which one wins the battle but loses the war, or a pyrrhic victory, in which the cost of winning almost constitutes a defeat?

In Chariots of Fire, Harold Abrahams is glad to have won a gold medal after so much effort. But he knows it’s done nothing to change a 1920s society in which he experiences no true belonging because he’s a Jew. The truth is, despite the hold that rivalry and competition have over our imaginations, life isn’t fundamentally about winning.
It’s more about finding ways to live with one another without resorting to violent confrontation. And that requires the nonviolent apprehension of differences. Arguably the greatest aspect of the Second World War for Britain was that it brought about an unprecedented level of mutual respect and equality, because it required every citizen working together to win it, and thus everyone knew they belonged.

For most of its history, Christianity too has been captivated by the notion of victory, in the idea that the cross of Jesus conquers sin and death. The trouble is, sin and death seem to be very much still with us. I wonder if a better way of understanding Jesus’ cross is to see it as the ultimate demonstration that God will be with us, whatever befall: not that reality is a battle that’s already been won – instead, that existence is full of tragedy, conflict and despair, but there’s a love that will never let us go, and will ultimately endure.

I imagine on May 8, 1945, while some jumped into fountains, others sat reflectively like Harold Abrahams cradling his medal. Victory can be ecstatic. But it’s fleeting. Life isn’t something you can win. Its truth lies perhaps more fully with those things that ultimately endure; and never let us go.

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