We return, on this date, to one of my favorite contextual analogies of spiritual life – the concept of a life race, followed entirely in self-competition – self-evaluation guided and coached by the life of Jesus Christ. He is the model of the life race, proven winner in his triumph of God and righteousness over death, as demonstrated in his resurrection and ascension. For me the reality of the Pauline observation to the Corinthians became even more intensified in seeing Gil Dodds win the world indoor mile record in Chicago in the 1940s. I knew Dodds, who many times used the concept of racing and self-motivation in Christ to teach the Christian concept of winning. He coached us in college for running both the race in nature and the race in spiritual advancement (spiritual growth that assured and meant winning – as God wins in us).
I return to the concept of self-competition which is the victory of the best self over the lesser ones that a person might choose. It is important to remember that we can own just one. I do not lose my faith when I have done something that violates its purest meaning, but when I learn of my lapse I am expected to get to it, be penitent about it, gain forgiveness for it, make right whatever can be righted, and press on in the race to become the person God wants me to be. To gain that first place takes some doing, some training, and application. On occasion it is difficult (exhausting), and on others easily (restfully) applied, but the process is the same whether caused by a tiny pebble in the shoe or a charley-horse in the leg. Problems and solutions are found within ourselves. Therein is the miracle story of spiritual victory. Scripture states: Christ in you the hope of glory. There is a within experience of Christ, achieved in the work of the Holy Spirit that is entirely impossible to explain as a natural event, or adequately told in language. It can be clear enough to the person of faith in Christ, that the person can claim a born again experience. It is something no other religion espouses. As Jesus Christ, both man and God, demonstrated that the life of nature and the life of God can exist in the same person, so the principle is reproduced, in a special kind of way, for the person with legitimate Christian faith. From his mother, Mary, he was human: from God he was Divine. On occasion he demonstrated his humanity: weeping, eating, resting, praying, visiting – and the like. From his Deity: he relayed unknown and humanly unknowable information, performed miracles, clarified morality to values – and the like. When this is understood in the Christian experience the idealism of God is racing against any and all other natures and ideals. Which of these will win? Scripture, the play-book for life offers the plays of the spiritual athlete for winning, and even provides stories of both success and failure in their application or evasion. Faith in the Coach, the guidelines and the applications becomes vital to the living scenarios of individual Christian lives.
Of all the disciples with whom Jesus related for the purpose of forming Apostles, the one most like the Christians I have met (in myself and others) was Peter. He could rise to such heights as in declaring Jesus the Son of God, and sink to such depths as swearing at the fireside and denying he ever knew Jesus, while Jesus was being maltreated yonder. He could be attentive, ask questions of Jesus, and miss his calling in raising jealousy over John, or sinking in the waves when he turned his sight from Jesus. Jesus held Peter through thick and thin, but Peter, until after the resurrection was sometimes flimsy in his faithfulness. After his faith embraced the totality of meaning of Christ for him, regardless of the circumstances, he won his race. He illustrated his experience, perhaps feeling a desire to pay for any unfaithfulness, when he too, according to tradition, was crucified, requesting that the event be carried through with his head downward. He felt he was unworthy to die in the same position, head upwards, as did Jesus. He knew he had been forgiven, and had lived for years in faithful ministry until his death, but the sense of early stumbling in the race embarrassed him to a sacrificial degree. I understand his feeling and sometimes share it in myself, except that forgiveness and redemption hold firmly – so to be free of guilt. We win our race when in faith we accept his redemptive work of forgiveness and follow him to win. I want my better self to win. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020