In life we need great metaphors. Paul gave us one when he wrote "therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which cling 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 joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."
One October our older daughter Brenda and I went to New York for the marathon. About the twentieth mile on that long pull up First Avenue, I don't think I've ever been so tired ever before in my life. My legs hurt, my arms hurt, my hands were numb, my feet ached——and I was only watching! There we were, three million spectators watching 22,000 runners. It was some experience. However, it was not as crowded as it sounds because I've never seen that many thin people in my life. One of the things I noticed in the race is that not a single fat person crossed that 20-mile point where I was standing, and I'm sure it's strictly due to prejudice and discrimination. I haven't made up my mind about running in it next year but I may have to just so the fat people will be represented.
When you consider the race as a metaphor, more than just an athletic event, you come to see these things:
1. Everyone who ran was qualified. There was no one running due to nepotism nor was there anyone running who hadn't finished or placed in another marathon.
2. There was great fun at the start, as there is in every enterprise. We passed thousands of people getting on the buses for Verrazano Bridge, all happy and smiling. There were pasta parties and jubilation in the streets the night before. Everyone had high expectations and everyone had hope.
3. The good runners were running their own race. They had their own watches and were timing themselves, and while they were in the crowd they still were sticking to their own game-plan and not letting their peers set their pace.
4. There was pain at the finish. There always is. I was with Bob Richards, the Olympic gold medal winner, when he was interviewing some current Olympic winners. He asked them, "What do you do when you hurt?" Each one of them had a procedure, differing but appropriate to themselves. When we finished I asked him why he asked that question and he replied, "You never win the gold without hurting." Christ carried his cross across the finish line.
5. You only get the medal when you finish. Those who had won medals were still wearing their sweats and their medals as they boarded their planes for home. Their times may have differed, but each medal wearer had crossed the white line.
6. The runners got great support from the cheering crowds, but the runners knew that they would need something more and so they stationed their supporters at various places along the line, either to give them water or to cheer them on. At 82nd & First we were standing beside a mother in a wheelchair who was holding on to the rope and looking down First Avenue waiting for her Bob to show up. Here he came, and the family of wife, father, and other relatives began to cheer him, "You're looking good! Come on, Bob, you can do it! We're proud of you !" As he passed, smiling, his father handed him a cup of water.
Seeing and hearing the cheering I recall this verse about the "great cloud of witnesses" and what a difference it would make in our life if we really genuinely believed that the people in heaven are watching us and hollering commendations and encouragements to us. In a lay retreat I talked to Don Carter about one of my favorite people, his mother Mary Crowley. What an encouragement it would be to think that she was cheering us on. Our fathers and mothers who have gone on, our relatives, our friends who are in that cloud of witnesses —— what a hope for us to have. Mary Alice and I were attending a small country church and in the Sunday school was a lady who was telling about how she had lived a very exemplary life as a young girl simply because her mother had died when she was a child and her family told her that her mother could see her from heaven. She believed it and it guided her life.
The race may be to the swift in common lore, but we know that many of us run at less than lightening speed. The pace isn't the goal --- crossing the finish line to hear "well done" is. We may carbo-load together and we may celebrate as the gun goes off, but each of us has our own race to run. Our hope is that those who come behind will find that we were faithful in our race.
