Taking a knee, it doesn’t always mean what you think it means.

Taking a knee can refer to

• Taking the knee, a form of anti-racism protest which originated in U.S. national anthem protests (2016–present)

This seems to have taken root in the Olympics this year, where both the U.S. and the Swedish women soccer team took a knee before the start of the game. The question is, do they even know what they were aligning themselves with in so doing?

Being a Christian myself I always came to think of the little chorus we sang from time to time during worship: (The words are an abbreviated paraphrase from Philippians 2:6-11)

The other image that is forever ingrained in my memory was when my wife and I were waiting for our daughter to come back from a few months in Sweden. We were standing outside the International arrivals building in Philadelphia when we heard a scream and a rather good looking black woman in her twenties came running out the door like she was pursued. Then she suddenly stopped, took a knee, went down on both knees, bent all the way down and kissed the ground and said in a strong but not loud voice, Thank you, God, thank you God. Then she rose up, and as we looked startled at her, she smiled at us and was gone. This was 30 years ago.