The Scripture reading for this Sunday is Hebrews 11:23-12:3.
The Christian life isn’t easy. Perhaps that is something that, from our experience, we don’t need to be reminded of. In the same breath where we will affirm that our faith gives us strength, hope, and meaning we can readily exclaim that being a Christian is hard.
There are those, however, who tell us that the Christian life if lived properly moves from one material blessing to the next. If we pray right, love right, act right … but if there is one thing we learn from Genesis 3 it is that at the Fall we fell into a brokenness where those things aren’t possible for us. Because God loves us so much, and cannot be in the presence of sin because he is perfectly holy, he removed us from his presence in the garden. This removal – this banishment – because of our sin serves as the source of our deep longings and sinful tendencies to chase meaning and hope and love in all the wrong places.
The Christian life is hard because we live, now, in the time between the fulfillment of God’s promises in Jesus (of restoration and wholeness) and the time when we will be restored to life in His presence. In this intermediary time we struggle with sin, struggle with the ways of the world, struggle with our faith, and long for the time when Jesus will return.
The author of Hebrews, in chapter 12:1, likens the Christian life to a race. “Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, we throw off all that slows us down – the sin that ensnares us – and through patient endurance, let us run the race set before us.” In the Greek, the word used for race is “agona,” which is the word from which our word “agony” comes from. The type of race that the author refers to is not the short sprint that, while difficult, is run in short sprints; rather, he is talking of a marathon-type race that requires endurance, discipline, and patient endurance to overcome pain and fatigue.
As the author of Hebrews reminds us, there is only one way for us to run the race set before us; that is by “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” (Heb. 12:2) “For the joy set before him [Jesus] endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God,” (Heb. 12:2) More than God’s Son and the perfect sacrifice for us, Jesus is also the perfect example for us of a life of faith and perseverance.
The author of Hebrews calls us to fix our eyes on Jesus as we run the race set out before us. In the midst of the opposition he faced, Jesus, who was without sin willingly stood in our place. He grasped the joy before him – the joy of our restoration and wholeness, and of his restoration to the right hand of God – and persevered for us and our salvation. By faith we are called to follow his example, run the race, and not grow weary or lose heart.