Run!

The movie, “Forrest Gump” came out just twenty-eight years ago, If you saw it, you will recall the segment in which Forrest tells of a childhood experience of running away from bullies. It is his example of a modern-day miracle. He is walking with his soul-friend, Jennie Curran (they are like peas and carrots.) Suddenly, local kids in the Alabama country town, ride up on their bicycles, hurling insults and then rocks at the one they see as mentally slow and different.

Laden with leg braces, and correctional devices for his curvature of the spine, Forrest quite awkwardly takes off running. Jennie calls out multiple times, “Run, Forrest, run!” The bullies are chasing him on their bicycles when the miracle happens. He is so determined to escape, that Forrest’s body and legs pound the road with powerful strides until the braces begin to deconstruct and litter the country dirt road with metal rods, joints, and straps. Once free of all of that hardware, Forrest outran the boys, who were tired from pedaling their bicycles in pursuit of the target of their cruelty. The miracle was the endurance, the strength, and the speed of his running. He goes from his inactive self, encumbered by physical and social restrictions to an adrenalin-juiced track star in a matter of minutes.

I thought of this story when I read the passages connecting Hebrews chapter eleven with the beginning of chapter twelve. The Christian teacher that generated this letter goes through a roll call of faith containing figures from the Hebrew Scriptures, from Abel through David, Samuel, and the Prophets, he tells how trust in God, a living faith, made all the difference in connecting them to the love and power of God. The writer does this as a way of introducing a connection for life in God that far surpasses the ones of those he listed from the sacred record. His testimony on trust presses toward “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,” Jesus, who trusted his heavenly Father to bring him through the cross, all the way to a heavenly throne. He names so many figures of faith, then says,

Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:39-40)

This leads him to challenge readers to the next step, We step up to the start line of our race in the adventure of faith. For this race we strip down, shedding all that would restrict the speed of our sprinting. We think of runners that came before us, but we know it is our turn now. We run like our life depends on it and look for the one at the finish line, the one who perfects our faith:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings 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 sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.?  (Hebrews 12:1-2)

It is your turn; the race is begun. Run, believer, run!