Wherefore seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and every sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. ~Hebrews 12:1
Jesus Was Not a Jogger
Jesus was not a jogger. There was no place in the Hebrew imagination or the ancient Jewish teaching for the idea of running a race. The idea of running a race, and the training of an athlete to compete in that race, comes from the Greek mind of the Olympics, which are believed to have originated among the Greeks in 776 B.C. They began with just a single 600-foot race called the
stadion. When Greece was conquered by Rome in 146 B.C., Romans joined the Greek athletes in the games every four years; it was called the Olympiad. During the compilation of the Septuagint (Hebrew Bible in Greek in the 3rd century B.C.) and during the lifetime of Jesus (first century A.D.), the Jewish people would have known about the Olympics and running races, but they held no place in their cultural imagination.
The Olympics Were Religious
One should
not use the modern Olympics (introduced in 1896) as the lens by which we use the Olympic metaphor of running a race found in the writings of the New Testament (Hebrews 12:1; I Corinthians 9:24-26; Galatians 2:2; 2 Timothy 4:7; Acts 20:24).
The ancient Olympic games were a pagan religious festival. They were named after the highest mountain in Greece, Mount Olympos, which in Greek mythology was the home of the twelve Olympic deities. The games were dedicated to Zeus, possibly in reference to him winning the battle over Chronos (time). The athletes ran under the banner of Nike, the goddess of victory. It was their pagan religious connection that caused the ancient Olympic games to be ended in 393 A.D. by Emperor Theodosius I who had converted to Christianity.
The Olympics Were Militaristic
There was a direct connection between running a race and winning a military battle. One of the primary Olympic races, the
hiplitodromos, was run in military armor. The race participants, like military soldiers, had to be male, Greek (later Roman), and free born. Women, slaves, and foreigners were disallowed (though scholars debate some exceptions). There was only one winner and he was crowned with an olive wreath of victory. The victor held a palm leaf in his hand during their ceremonial crowning. This is the same symbolism we see when Roman soldiers returning from victorious battle would be hailed in a procession of citizens lining the streets waving palm branches for their military victory (sounding familiar?). And the emperor, referred to as the Son of God, would put out an edict of victory and peace which was called the
evangelion or “the good news.” In English, we call this “good news” the gospel by which we
evangelize. The
gospel is in its original etymology a military-political term by which the peace of the kingdom (empire) was proclaimed by the sovereign leader for victory over the enemy.
Running the Race and the Christian Gospel
Given what has been described thus far, a Christian then might be confused (if not scandalized) by the use of a pagan religious festal event with warlike imagery to serve as the literary palate upon which to paint a picture of salvation and the Christian life. Why use this imagery?
The most obvious answer might be because it was a metaphor that a predominately gentile Hellenistic community would immediately and completely understand. The gymnasium was at the heart of Greek life. Athletic games were woven into the Greco-Roman fabric of a
Pax Romana. The Olympics were a religious festival thanking the gods with warlike images that mimic victories which kept the peace of the Empire. The athlete in this social milieu was both a type of soldier and patriotic demigod. Athletes training at the local gymnasium, baths, and
thermae would have merchants bottling their oily sweat and selling it as some kind of perfumed sports collectable! (In fact, perhaps like no other time in history, our contemporary American cult of sport is eerily similar.)
However, just because a metaphor is useful for description does not necessarily make it appropriate. Why would the Apostle Paul and the writers of the New Testament use such a disturbing and seemingly inappropriate metaphor? I have chosen five elements of the Olympic race which are essential features to illustrate the life of salvation in Christ:
1. You will suffer. The race is a difficult struggle.
2. You are not guaranteed a victory. You must finish the race well. (You will not find support for “once saved, always saved” in this illustration.)
3. You must maintain hope in order to endure with patience. You must run with intensity while running relaxed. Keep your eyes ahead of you (and your mind above you) while letting your body move in a way for which it has been properly trained.
4. Part of the trust and hope comes from knowing the
set path that you are running. This is a race
set before us. While the specifics of the race may be unknown, the course and the goal are not created on the fly by the participant. You know what you are in for with the set path.
5. The “sin” of running is not running with pain and injury (this is expected and even anticipated for the athlete). Neither is the failure of the race due to not training as well as you should have (however ill-advised that may be). Rather the “sin” that leads to death is about
how you ran the race—were you “running off course?”; did you “miss the mark?”; and did you “make your own way?” “The way” is not about your running form, or infractions of the race—it is
staying on the right path till the finish line. The crown of victory is placed and the good news of the Son of God is spread throughout the kingdom only when the athlete crosses the finish line with the words,
“Well done my good and faithful servant.”
The Sacredness of the Run
To use a “pop cultural icon” in the first century to illustrate a previously unknown or misunderstood Christian idea is perhaps justifiable because of its intent, even if the image is a bit shocking; but the early Christian leaders, writers of the New Testament, the early Church Fathers, and the entire monastic life adopts this image of
the athlete training and running the race as a
central Christian image. Running a race has been transfigured into an icon of holy instruction and life. Why use a thoroughly pagan descriptor of your oppressor to write the theological concept of the salvific life of
every Christian? Here is where Christianity takes what is pagan and transforms the cultural event into an entirely different and sacred illustration:
1. You are the athlete. Your salvation does not come by inheritance, or membership, or entitlement, or talent, or position in society, or even just by proper training—you must personally
run the race of your life well.
2. The Christian athlete that runs includes females, includes slaves, includes immigrants as well as the poor, orphaned, and widowed. In fact it puts
the least of these as the pace runners, because they know about suffering—they understand the gift of being able to participate in a race they don’t deserve to win. In humility, you stay behind the runners that the world places in the back.
3. You do not run for you. You do not run alone. You are “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” of the living and the dead. Your team carries you every step. You have trained with the assembly of the Holy. Your “gymnasium” has been the altar of the Almighty God and His Twelve Apostles whose flame burns eternally and is sent out as good news from the mountain of the heavenly City. This is not your private race—it is “the race that is set before
us.” You cannot be an athlete without a citizenship and a legitimate team to run the Olympic race. You cannot be a Christian by yourself. You without a Church is simply you and not the Church.
4. The invitation to run the race is a free gift. None of us deserve the favor of the Sovereign to be crowned at the finish line. This gift of grace should not be taken lightly. Rather we should train as if our life depends upon it. We should subject our bodies to every conceivable training method to prepare us for the suffering of the race.
The Spiritual Athlete Trains with an Ascetic Life
It is no coincidence, that the word
asceticism means “athlete.” We are
all called to train as spiritual athletes. Our methods of training which include regular prayer, fasting, and almsgiving have been set before us by the ascetics and Holy men and women of the Church throughout history that have already run this race and won! Our running equipment and even our spiritual armor has been
set before us with the Holy Scriptures, the lectionary, the psalter, the order of worship, the sacraments, etc. And while the running gear and training methods should never be conflated with the race itself, no athlete in their right mind or their coaches would say that proper equipment and training is somehow counter-productive to running the race well. Your race and finishing it well will be the fruition of training well.
The spiritual athlete who wakes up early and drinks daily from the water of the word, and is nourished by feeding the poor instead of the desires of his/her own stomach, and suffers voluntarily in small increments by giving away their money, time, and talents is the spiritual athlete who is training wisely to run the race of the saved life as they cross the finish line of life. Voluntary suffering is the training exercise for the inevitable involuntary suffering that this world brings. The cross of Christ is the beginning, middle, and end of that race. The cross that purchases the ticket for us to run, is the same cross we must carry through the race, in a procession to the end with the Holy assembly of God, His angels, saints, and spiritual “team.” This suffering comes as no surprise for the well-trained athlete—it has been exercised daily. We maintain endurance with patience because we have hope that the race can be won, because in Christ,
we press on with the knowledge that it has already been won.
