13th Sunday after Pentecost
August 29, 2004
Hebrews 12:1-13

^12:1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. ²Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

⁴In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ⁵And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, ⁶because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."

⁷Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? ⁸If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. ⁹Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! ¹⁰Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. ¹¹No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. ¹²Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ¹³"Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. (NIV).

The Lord's Faith Training Camp.

  While watching the Olympic Games, you have likely seen a Visa commercial that is a strange multi-event relay. It begins with a young woman diving off a high platform. In the water she passes a baton to a swimmer who, at the end of the pool, passes it to a high jumper. As she clears the bar, she throws the baton to a volleyball player. He dives to hit the baton as if it were a volleyball and crashes into the sand looking very tired. A coach catches the baton and in a cold, compassionless voice, says, "Again." The volleyball player groans and drops his head to the sand!

  Now put yourself in the place of the volleyball player. How do you feel about doing it all again? It's obviously very difficult and not at all pleasant. How do you feel about your coach? Is he mean, compassionless and unreasonable, or is he caring, correct and reasonable? Is he trying to destroy you or bring you to the height of your physical and mental abilities? We all know the answers, don't we? The coach is doing what is necessary to train you so you can be the best and win your event. It's just one of the facts of life that the training or discipline required to win can be gruelling.

  The word of God uses this metaphor of racing and training to teach us about our life of faith in Jesus. Like the perfect coach, God constantly trains us so that we attain our goal of eternal life. The training is often difficult and we may wonder about God's training methods. We may even feel like throwing in the towel. But if we look at Jesus, we'll see that God's training for faith works perfectly. So God's word to us this day is this: Persevere in the Christian faith because, come what may, the Lord is training you for your race of faith.

  Now you may not like to run, so the idea of the Christian faith as a race might intimidate you. Don't worry; you don't have to physically run. Nevertheless, God's word speaks to us about our faith as a race that you and I must run. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

  You can't tell from the English but there is only one verb in all that, "Let us run!" That's the exhortation made to us. Run the race of faith marked out for you! Not surprisingly, the Greek word for "race" is the same word the ancient Greeks used of their national games at Olympus. How appropriate as we come to the end of the 28th Olympiad, for God to speak to us in the language and imagery of the Olympic Games. Run the race of faith marked out for you!

  The rest of the words tell us how we are to run this race. First, we run by remembering the cloud of witnesses around us. If you remember from last week, the chapter preceding today's reading speaks of great ancient heroes of the faith, from Abel to last of the prophets. Those people of faith are witnesses to encourage us. They are like coaches standing on the sideline shouting to you, "You can do it; just keep going!" We are not pioneers, the first to ever encounter opposition to our faith. Some of the ancient Greeks, long before Jesus, believed in evolution! We don't face any temptations to give up the faith that those before us have not faced. There is nothing new under the sun! In fact, those who have gone before us have in a sense prepared the way for us. They have already run their leg of the race before passing the baton to us. So we are not alone. Rather you and I are part of a huge relay race spanning centuries of time. It's our turn to sweat and grunt before we pass the baton to others. You and I can do what they did!

  If you have ever run a race or watched others run, you know that they don't put on lots of heavy, cumbersome clothing. They get rid of anything that would slow them down so they can run as fast and far as possible. In fact, the ancient Greeks ran their Olympic races in the nude! So the Holy Spirit tells you and me to run having thrown off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.

  You win or complete this race by having absolute confidence in Jesus. You lose this race when you give up trust in Christ. So what hinders us or trips us in our race of faith? Anything that takes our eyes off Jesus! Think about Jesus' parable of the sower and the seed he planted. What hindered the growth of the seed? Satan; persecution and opposition to the faith; and the cares of the world, the lure of wealth and the desire for other things. These things stole the seed, stomped on it and choked out the plant so that it died. Those same things drag us down so that we can't run. They lead us into sin which is simply rebellion against God. If you are rebelling against God, you certainly can't run toward him. You run away from him. So we must be wise and intelligent runners. We are running a marathon not a sprint, a life-long race not a one day jog. We must recognize and get rid of anything that makes it hard for us to run, or else we'll get tired and fall or quit before we can pass the baton.

  Instead of hindrances, Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Here is how you and I will endure and finish the race, by fixing our eyes on Jesus.

  He is the author and perfecter of faith. That is he creates, sustains and completes your faith. You don't have to generate anything. He does it for you. All you have to do is keep you eyes on him. How? By seeing him in Word and Sacrament. When you hear or read the Scriptures, you see Jesus. You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. (John 5:39-40). When you receive the Sacrament of the Altar, you see Jesus. This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, shed for the remission of your sins. How simple can it be?

  I have a memory I will never forget. I was filming one of my sons on his first bicycle. He was so proud and kept looking at the camera rather than where he was going. Well you know what happened. He rode right into the wall of the horse barn and crashed and burned. I got it all on tape! Our problem is that we like to look around at so many other things. We are easily distracted and lured away to things besides Jesus. Then one day we look back ahead where we're going and there's no Jesus. We either run into a wall and knock ourselves out or find that we're lost with no idea where to go. But we need not run into a wall or get lost. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Let him speak and be the coach!

  When we are told to fix our eyes on Jesus, the focus is not primarily his divinity—the fact that he is the transcendent, eternal, almighty God, our judge at the end of life. Instead we focus on his humanity, his likeness to us, how he suffered and endured opposition. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. (Hebrews 4:15). He knows what opposition is. He knows the temptation to give up the race God has put before you and try something else. Don't think that Satan's temptations were child's play. Don't forget how he agonized in the garden before his humiliation on the cross and how hard it was for him as the Jewish leaders mocked him as he hung there. Yet he endured all that and much more for the sake of the joy set before him. And if you keep you eyes fixed on him you will see the joy set before you: to be with him and like him in eternal life!

  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus . . . so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Well we do sometimes take our eyes off Jesus. We grow weary and lose heart! Why?

  One reason is that we forget the nature of our race. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. Our race or struggle is not against each other or other people. It's against sin. And sin isn't just a cheater who shoves and trips us, it kills us and separates us from God. It's always been that way, from the beginning of time. Remember Cain and Abel? Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." (Genesis 4:6-7). That's why we must fix our eyes on Jesus. He has defeated the monster of sin and mastered it. Only he has power over sin, death and the devil; and only when he puts his Spirit in us can we have that power.

  A second reason why we grow weary is because we forget God's intentions. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." Quoting Proverbs 3:11, he says that they have quite forgotten basic wisdom, elementary teaching, namely that God disciplines us as sons. That is an act of love and should encourage us.

  Now you must understand something. Discipline is probably not the best way to translate the Greek concept here. For us, the word "discipline" has very negative connotations. The word must be understood in its full sense of training or education. The idea is to bring up a child to his or her full physical and moral development. We can get the meaning from Paul's words to Timothy: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training [discipline] in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

  The idea then is not just that God disciplines us. He fully trains and educates us in righteousness. He is the perfect coach with the perfect training program. Therefore—substituting the word "training" for "discipline", Endure hardship as discipline [training]; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined [trained] by his father? If you are not disciplined [trained] (and everyone undergoes discipline [training]), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.

  Whatever we endure as Christians is God's training. And that is a proof that you are his child for whom he cares. He is investing time, energy and resources in your development! He is treating you as he did Jesus himself. During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. (Hebrews 5:7-9).

  Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined [trained] us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined [trained] us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines [trains] us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No man on this earth raises his son perfectly. My father wasn't perfect and I'm not the perfect father to my sons. But God raises us or trains us perfectly. Thus, if we respected and trusted our imperfect fathers—and generally that is the case—how much more do we need to respect and trust God? His knowledge is not limited. He doesn't struggle with how to educate and discipline us. He knows! And he does this perfectly so that we may share in his holiness, i.e., that we may again receive the image of God lost at creation and again be in God's presence.

  No discipline [training] seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. When the coach says, "Do it again," we all groan. Now it's hard. But when you finish the race, it's all worth it. We must never forget that. Our race of faith is long. We get tired of hearing our coach say, "Again." We may think he's crazy and that we can't take any more. But our coach, the Holy Spirit knows what he's doing. And any pain now is worth it in the end. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

  Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you are in a race that you want to finish. The race is to keep faith in Christ. The way to finish is to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith. When is gets tough, don't give up on yourself or God. Trouble isn't a sign that you are failing or that God is letting you down. He is training you, preparing you for eternal life. So keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and you'll finish the race.