Episodes
Sunday Nov 03, 2013
All Saints Mass Meditation
Sunday Nov 03, 2013
Sunday Nov 03, 2013
Rev. Dean Snyder
Hebrews
12:1-2
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
--Hebrews 12:1-2
The metaphor in Hebrew 12 is an athletic event … a race. The first century Roman empire was heavily into sports. Every town of any size had a stadium or an arena.
Hebrews 12 talks about our life journey as a race, a marathon perhaps.
One of the interesting things about the Hebrew 12 metaphor is that it assumes that everyone has the capacity to finish their particular race. Finishing this race is not dependent upon athletic ability. Instead it is dependent upon what the runner is willing to lay aside … what we are willing to let go off.
“Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us…”
Finishing this race is dependent upon what we are willing to give up … let go of.
Everybody wants to begin a race looking good. We deliberate for weeks about what shirt and shorts we will wear, we visit Pacers or lululemon, and we research over and over what shoes we will buy six weeks before the race to break in.
But no one ends a marathon looking good. The photos in Runners World are photo shopped; they must be. No one ends a marathon looking good. Some of us don’t end up a 5K looking very good.
Somewhere in the course of the race, we stop caring about what we look like. We stop paying attention to our hair, our clothes, our form, our style. We just focus on the next mile. The next block.
The only way to finish this race is to lay aside every pretension, to let go of our dignity and pride, our status and reputation. The only way to finish this race is the way Jesus finished his – almost naked.
I don’t know the weight you carry with you as you run your race. I know something about the weight I don’t want to let go of.
I don’t know what sin clings to you. I know something about the cling that clings to me and that is hard to let go of.
I do know that to run with perseverance the race set before us, I need to lay aside day by day every weight and the sin that clings so closely.
The reason we have any hope of doing this this is because filling the stands of the arena is a great cloud of witnesses who are cheering us on. These are those who have run their races before us, they have finished their races nearly naked, they endured their cross, disregarding its shame, for the sake of the joy on the other side of the finish line.
When you are running the race, the cheering stands look like a cloud, you can’t make out faces, but you know somewhere in the cloud is a parent, a grandparent, an uncle or aunt, a teacher, a mentor, a friend, a pastor, a partner who finished the race before you and who is cheering you on, praying for you to finish your race, praying for you from the cloud.
And there are people in the cloud you or I never knew or
even heard of, but their race made our race possible. They may have finished
their race in anonymity or even antipathy. But their race made our race
possible. So our victory is their victory. They cheer for us and pray for us
from the cloud.
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