Run With Perseverance
You can't run the marathon of life on your own. But don't quit and run the other way. In Hebrews 12:1-3 we are encouraged to "Run With Perseverance," cheered, championed, unentangled, unburdened, and on track. March 28, 2010
Shoelaces – and that’s it! You bend down on one knee to tie one shoe just so, then the next. Now you’re ready. That’s the last item as you worked through your mental checklist. You started with a protein-enriched light breakfast, arrived early for warm-ups, and did your stretching. The sunglasses are in place, the kind that won’t fog up and won’t hold little pools of perspiration, not too tight on the ears and yet won’t slip down your nose. Sunscreen, lip balm, comfie low-cut sox, shoes with a perfect heel-toe impact distribution, and finally the shoelaces. You’re in a race. It’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon – twenty-six miles, three hundred eighty-five yards – and it’s your first. The course is not familiar to you, so you try to picture how the road will bend and turn, drop and rise. A huge crowd of runners has assembled and starts scrunching closer to the starting line. Suddenly your mind flashes ahead to images of marathon runners you have seen on TV – exhausted, doubled-over. You see in your mind some collapsed on the side of the road with cramps, some dehydrated, some just plain worn out. As you look ahead, you begin to wonder, “Am I going to be one of those casualties? Will I make it to the finish line?”
When did you first begin to look ahead in life? Do you remember being in eighth grade and looking ahead to high school? Do you recall the last semester of your senior year in high school looking ahead to graduation? Are you in college or graduate school struggling to see some light at the end of the tunnel as you look ahead to finishing your degree? Have you been looking ahead to retirement, but with the economy the way it is realizing that you’ll have to put in a few more years? Are you in retirement and looking ahead to some relaxing, pain-free days, but they never seem to arrive? The writer to the Hebrews knows the drill. We’re all in a race, the marathon of life. He wants to help us run it, looking ahead with confidence, even joy. So he encourages us to, Run With Perseverance, cheered, championed, unentangled, unburdened, and on track.
As you are about to begin the marathon, you have been concentrating so hard on your preparation and the pace you want to set that you blocked out all the sights and sounds around you. You finally look around and see a huge throng of people, not just fellow runners but spectators. They’re cheering, clapping, waving signs, and, of all things, the signs have your name on it. They’re cheering for you!
Can you even begin to count the times you felt like you were all alone on life’s marathon, when you felt like you were battling through school issues or work issues or family issues or relationship issues all alone? Do you know that there’s a massive assembly of fellow Christians who are on your side and cheering wildly? The previous chapter of this letter lists seventeen people by name, people from Adam to the prophet Samuel, and refers to thousands upon thousands more, who completed the marathon and are cheering you. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses … let us run with perseverance.
It’s one thing to be cheered. It’s another to be championed. That’s what makes our race unique. There is one who has gone before us, who completed the race not just to be a model as someone whose record we can shoot for and whose running style is worth imitating but who is our substitute. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the one who starts and completes our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful people, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. That does not mean we don’t have to run. What it does mean is that there are two things we know for sure. Number one: He knows exactly what we’re going through when we run because he has been there and done that. Number two: Because he won the race for us, it doesn’t matter how fast we run. We are considered by God to be winners.
So, you toe the mark. Adrenaline starts coursing through your veins. You can feel your heart rate climbing. Bang! – the gun goes off. Lifting your head to see how you can sweep to the front, you stride out only to find your foot go only a foot. You tumble to the ground, scraping palms and knees and get “that close” to a face full of pavement. What in the world? You try to scramble up only to loose your balance again. Just then, you hear snickers from up ahead. The guy, who had been lined up behind you, had reached down and, right before the race, tied your shoelaces together.
Because your homework wasn’t done the way your teacher would have liked, and you were docked for it, you stumble as a dirty word slips out. Because the guy on the freeway cut you off, and the boss loads even more on your desk, you stumble as frustration and hatred boil up inside. Because a person of the opposite gender is a friend who suggests that you need more attention than your spouse offers, you stumble by looking at that person the way Eve looked at the fruit of the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden. The devil loves to sneak up behind us and tie our shoelaces together so that we stumble during life’s marathon. He’s very tricky and very good at it.
He tried that on Jesus, too. Not one day had gone by after Jesus’ inauguration into ministry, and Satan plugged him with every sneaky attack in his arsenal. Fortunately, our Savior is so powerful that he broke the shoelace knots that Satan had tied. Jesus never stumbled but went striding forward all the way down to hell and bludgeoned Satan into submission. Jesus does not merely model how we should break tied shoelaces. He gives our spiritual ankles and legs power. You and I are on a marathon run through life. Keep your eyes peeled to see the devil’s tricks, and break free from the sin that so easily entanglesso that you run the race with perseverance.
You hit mile five, and as you swing by a water station, something drops out of a tree onto your back. It’s heavy and seems impossible to get rid of. You wanted to go the entire twenty-six point two miles, but now you are not sure if you can go another ten feet. The burden is so heavy.
Our conscience adds burdens during our life’s marathon race and rightly so because we created those heavy weights by thinking things that are downright dirty, saying things that are downright mean, and doing things that are downright wrong. It feels like you were a kid, broke a neighbor’s window, and told no one – not him, not your parents, and not even your best friend. Every time you saw your neighbor walk by, you felt that pressure, that burden. That’s what a guilt-burden feels like.
Jesus bore a burden, too, but it was exponentially worse than ours. He bore the weight of all sins of all people. That’s a lot of broken windows, a lot of broken promises, and a lot of broken hearts. But he extends his hands to us this Palm Sunday and calls out, “I will take those burdens on a donkey ride into Jerusalem and dump them into a pile there so that a river of my blood can wash them away.” You and I are in a marathon run through life. Let us throw off everything that hinders, hand our sin burdens over to Jesus, and run the race with perseverance.
During the marathon you’re trying to stay focused and on track. You see another long hill up ahead. But as you approach it, you glance to the side and notice what appears to be a short cut. Within seconds a little demon alights on your shoulder and whispers in your ear, “Go that way! It’s an easier hill. Look! Other runners are going that way, and it looks like they’re actually having fun! So what if you go out of the race marker boundaries. There’s no official looking.” But then you wonder, “What if there are hidden cameras in the trees monitored by race officials? What should I do? Going off course is so tempting because it looks like the easy way, but it could get me disqualified and kicked out of the race.”
What temptations are distracting you and beckoning you to get off track? Moving in together and behaving like married people when you’re not married? Less that full reporting about income on those April fifteenth forms? Giving only a half-hearted effort at work and expecting the same benefits and bonuses? Feeding lust with images that you wouldn’t want anyone else to know you’re looking at. Blaming others for the hot water you’re in when it was your fast mouth that caused hurt and pain for others?
Jesus had plenty of tempting distractions, too. Don’t you think he could have heard those Palm Sunday cheers and said, “These accolades are exactly what people ought to give me. I’m going to get off this donkey, find a stallion, and ride through Jerusalem to show my opponents whose boss. Why should I be so humble when I’m God? Why should I give in to their hate?” But our Savior stayed on course and five days later went all the way to that hill outside Jerusalem. It wasn’t the easy route, but it was the right one – all for us. You and I are in a marathon run through life. Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
You can’t run the marathon of life on your own. But you can quit and run the other way. Don’t! Run with perseverance. You’ll make it to the finish line. Because of Jesus you can run like a champion. Why limp and hop as though your laces are tied? Fix your eyes on Jesus. He gives strength to help you break free. Why get weighed down with guilt-burdens? Fix your eyes on Jesus, and dump your burdens on him. Why let temptation distract you? Fix your eyes on Jesus who battled and beat Satan for you. Jesus never said the marathon of life would be easy, but because he is our Savior, we can run with perseverance, looking ahead with confidence and joy. Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (http://www.gracedowntown.org/) on March 28, 2010
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