Hebrews 12
Sports arenas provide an interesting
context to study people. If you look
around you will see all kinds of fascinating human interactions, but one of the
most fascinating is when the crowd responds as one body. It may be cheering, booing, groaning, or rejoicing,
but the action on the field elicits a similar response from thousands of people
at once.
Hebrews 12 speaks of life in terms like
a sporting contest. We are surrounded by
a great cloud of witnesses – the saints who have lived before us who pray for
us in God’s presence and cheer for us as the body of Christ, the world which
groans at our successes and watches for our failings and hypocrisy, and our
fellow Christians who, sadly, often move back and forth between cheering and
groaning.
I wonder how encouraging or exciting (or
terrifying) it would be to have that many people respond to something you’ve
done. I’ve heard baseball pitchers claim
that they don’t even hear the crowds, but I’ve also seen basketball and
football players trying to get the crowds cheering. What matters is which voices in the crowd you
listen to. Focusing on the right message
can build you up or tear you down.
The author of Hebrews says, “having lain
aside” our impediments and our sinful trip-ups, and “fixing our eyes” on Jesus “let
us run” the race (literally “the fight” or “contest”) set before us. The image here is similar the Olympic
competitions. There is a contest, a
fight, a race before us and we engage in it because God has provided the
perfect sacrifice that removes our sin by faith. Our lives are therefore changed by this
salvation in two key ways. One, we lay
aside the sins that cling to us and weigh us down in the power of God’s
forgiveness. We confess our sins and
receive absolution. That is possible
because, two, we look to Jesus the founder and foundation of our faith, the one
who bore our sins to the cross. He thought
lightly (scorned) the shame of being identified with us in our sin and dying
such an ignoble death because of the joy set before him: our salvation and the Father’s glory.
When the crowd call to us, this is where
we put our focus so that we may keep moving in Christ. We confess our sins, look to Jesus our savior,
and press on in His salvation.
Lord, help me fix my eyes on You and run the
race set out for me. Amen.
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