It's springtime and one of its sure signs are high school track meets.  As a boy I ran in them and as a father I watched my oldest son run in them.  It's refreshing to be outside in the spring competing against yourself and others, but it's just as refreshing to watch the young compete, the young and powerful ones often doing much better in the races and events you yourself had once done.

          In one of the first races of the spring in 1990 in Grand County, 10,000 ft. high in the mountains of Colorado, the runners were lined up for the 110 meter high hurdle race, the premier event of track meets.  It was a glorious day, sunny and brisk, and the wind was slightly at their back.  My son Chuck had the center position in this first race of his senior year.  Just as the sun broke through, the gun went off and the racers tore down the field, some hurdling magnificently, others somewhat awkwardly, but all crossed the finish line in record time.  13.5 seconds won the race - wow!  It was the fastest time in the state for years.  My son had won in state record time - what a way to start the year!  Then someone counted the flights of hurdles, and then re-counted them.  The course was one flight short.  Instead of 110 meters, they'd run only 100 meters.  Yes, it was record time, but on the wrong course.  Record times don't count when you run the wrong race.  Chuck went on to win every race that year, but this time always running on the right course.

          Our Christian life is like a race.  We want to run our lives in such a way that we let nothing distract us or keep us from finishing on the course.  We keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who will give us the prize of eternal life when we reach the goal.  The race is won by persevering in the faith, by staying the course, which the Holy Spirit enables us to do through God's grace in His Word and the sacraments.  Jesus Christ is the author and perfecter of our faith.  In Him we've already won.

          The Christian life is full of paradoxes.  Winners in the eyes of the world are those who are successful, powerful, influential, and well-respected.  But winners in the eyes of God are those who are servants, humble, faithful and gentle.  God's winners of the world cling to their possessions while God' winners cling to Christ.  Winners in Christ look like losers to the world.

          Paul was a living paradox.  Before His conversion he had been a real somebody with a lot going for him in the eyes of the world.  He was more righteous than others, strong in obeying the Law, faultless as a Pharisee could be.  Some of us may feel like that.  We might boast in our education, in our possessions, in our vocations, or in our upbringing.  We know we aren't as bad as others, or that we have the right beliefs.  We're a winner in the eyes of the world if we have all that going for us.

          But Saul of Tarsus saw his winning ways come to an end on the road to Damascus.  In a flash of light, Christ revealed to him that he was on the wrong course.  He may have looked like a winner, but Saul was a flight short!  "Saul, Saul!" said Jesus, "Why do you persecute me?  ...Now get up and go to Damascus.  There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do." (Acts 9:4-6)

          God changed the old Saul and made him a new man.  Saul, later called Paul, left behind His self-righteousness and depended on Christ's righteousness.  Paul began to preach the very Gospel he had tried to destroy.  He lost everything as far as the world was concerned, and took up the cross and became a fool for Christ.  Later he would write, "We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men.  We are fools for Christ..." (1 Corinthians 4:9-10)

          In exchange for a life of respect, Paul was imprisoned.  Instead of respect, he was flogged, beaten, and stoned.  Instead of honor, he was in danger from his own countrymen, in danger in the city and country, and at sea.  But rather than complain about all this, Paul actually boasted in his life, because he had been given something of greater value than anything he had before.  He had been given Jesus Christ, and compared to knowing Christ, everything else was rubbish.

          Paul found Christ and gained the goal.  He wrote in today's text, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."  God doesn't owe us eternal life; He gives it to us out of His divine goodness and mercy.  Paul didn't lay hold of Christ; Christ laid hold of him.  You and I didn't lay hold of Christ; He calls us by the Gospel, even while we are rebelling against Him.  Most of us didn't choose to be baptized.  We were brought to the baptismal font as babies.  There the Lord claimed us for His own.  Even if we were an adult like Paul when we were baptized, we still didn't choose God.  He chose us, baptized us, directs us to run the right course.

          Paul also wrote, "Run in such a way as to get the prize.  Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.  They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever." (1 Corinthians 9:24-25)   Training involves concentration, focusing on the goal.  Our minds are focused on the goal when we keep God's Word before us, in our hearts and in our minds.  The devil, the world and our flesh try to distract us from God.  They want us thinking about power and pleasure.  Therefore we need to pray that God would guard and keep us, so that Satan will not deceive us nor seduce us into disbelief, or despair, and other shameful things.

          We seek to gain the goal, and in this race, losers of the world are really winners.  The greatest loser of all was Christ, who seemingly lost everything to win us back from Satan.  Calvary made Jesus the Supreme Winner and today He calls us into the race of the Christian life which seems marked with nothing but loss and defeat.  The world and the powers of evil are against us.  Our sinful nature struggles with the new nature we have in Christ.  We wonder if evil will overcome us.  But Jesus says, "To him who overcomes evil, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God." (Revelation 2:7)   The Holy Spirit helps us run the race with perseverance till we finish and gain the goal our Lord will give us on that Final Day.

          Carl Lewis was one of the greatest of Olympic sprinters - won just about every race he ran.  But in his final Olympics he lost a gold medal because he looked to see where the other runners were.  That's a cardinal rule of sprinting - never look at the other runners, look only at the finish line.  Let them run where they may, but you concentrate on that finish line.  Lewis was ahead by a nose, and with his blazing speed, he'd have won the medal.  Instead, he glanced to his left, and the sole of his shoe caught the track.  And in that slight, immeasurable hesitation, another runner passed him by.  Instead of winning by a nose, the world's fastest human lost by an eyebrow.

          In this race of life, we must fix our eyes on Jesus.  To know Christ is to know the only Savior.  To run with Him is to know the power of His resurrection.  He has the power and victory over death and He will raise us up on the Last Day.  To know His sufferings is to live under the cross, to die to our sinful nature, and to rise again as the new person God gives us at our Baptism.

          Forget the rubbish and the junk!  Don't worry about the stuff that gets in your way.  Throw off everything that hinders you, the sin that entangles, the webs we weave in secret.  As the writer of Hebrews says, let's "run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  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 God.  Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." (Hebrews 12:1-2)

          Lose everything else, but don't lose heart, for Christ has overcome the world.  He is greater who is in you than he who tries to destroy the world.  In this race of eternal life, the world, the devil, and our sinful natures are the real losers.  In Christ, we are the victors, and gain the goal of eternal life.  The medals don't hang glittering around our necks, but they are the droplets of water from baptism.  Our Trophies aren't made of gold, but of bread and wine, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins.  When our last race is run, we have a crown of righteousness placed on our heads by Christ Himself.  O give thanks to the Lord who helps us gain the goal.  Amen

Copyright © 2004 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.