Be Inspired on the Journey to Heaven. August 18 2013. Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Mo Farah became Britain’s greatest ever track athlete with a fifth global gold medal and became only the second man in history to complete an Olympic and World double in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres events at the Moscow World Championships.
Just over a year ago he and other athletes astounded us with their abilities at the 2012 Olympic Games and I know I found myself watching sports about which I knew nothing and yet was carried away with the excitement of the events.
Athletes and competitors who are not doing as well as they are capable of can be heartened by the cheering and they find new sources of competitiveness to try to win. The England cricket team has often said the support of the Barmy Army is like having a 12th man on the field.
The writers of the New Testament were familiar with those sensations. The Olympic Games were the most famous of the sporting event of the classical world. Every city had some sort of competition held at a local stadium and it may interest you to know that a stade was a Greek furlong of 202 yards and a stadium was an arena holding a circuit a furlong long. Important races often had the finishing line in the middle of the city so that the whole population could turn out to cheer the winner.
The writer of the letter to the Hebrews was well aware of this. The spectators, a cloud of witnesses, are the heroes of the Old Testament who bore witness to God despite suffering and opposition. These dead people are really alive. We cannot see them, but they see us and support us as we face the difficulties and discouragements of being a Christian.
Imagine yourself as a runner and these great heroes are there willing you to win. Transpose that to the 21st century and we can see the saints, the
Christian heroes and people we have loved urging us on, willing us to win.
As you know athletes go into strict training and lose as much weight as they can. The Bible gives us a similar understanding. It points out that sin is what hampers us. Feelings of guilt, remember guilt is the gift of the devil, sinful habits, not loving our neighbours as much as we love ourselves. So if we get rid of them, strip them away and seek God’s forgiveness and persevere in prayer and practical service, even when we feel like giving up, we can remember we are doing it for Jesus.
Jesus has already run the race. Jesus has faced opposition, mockery, suffering, pain and was often tempted to give up.
When you are tempted to do something you know to be wrong, do you think no one will notice? When religion is being made fun of, do you shrink out of sight. When someone is having a hard time, are you reluctant to go to their defence? When someone needs help, is it too much trouble?
Remember you have a heavenly fan club. All the people who have loved you and have gone before are rooting for you to keep running the Christian race as long as you have to.
In the Christian race there are no winners or losers; whoever reaches the finishing line without giving up gets the prize of eternal life.
AMEN.
Rev’d Edwina Wallace.