Jesus, the Author and Finisher of Your Faith

DNF: Did not finish. All runners in a marathon start at the same time.

Every runner wears a bib with their number. The timekeepers mark the time of the runner’s bib number. Your score is your running time. If you do not finish the race, regardless of your effort of trying…whether you tripped and fell in the first minute or collapsed hours later…your score is: DNF. Did not finish. 

In the 1968 Olympic games in Mexico City, there was a runner John Stephen Akhwari from Tanzania. Seventy-five contestants started the race. Only 57 finished the marathon. Eighteen of the world’s best Olympic athletes did not finish the race and were given the score of DNF. The official distance of an Olympic marathon is 42.195 kilometers or a little more than 26 miles.

After running 19 kilometers Akhwari stumbled while jockeying with the other runners for position. He fell badly, wounding his shoulder and dislocating his knee. After receiving some medical attention, he got back on his feet and continued to run at a slower pace. He finished the race last. He crossed the finish line over an hour after the winner won first place. The stadium was empty. Everybody had moved on to the next event. When a news reporter asked him why he continued running he replied, “My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race; they sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.”  Jesus did not call us to start a race. He called us to finish a race. 

The marathon race is a tribute to a Greek soldier, Pheidippides, who ran approximately 40 kilometers from the town of Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek military victory over the Persians on September 12, 490 B.C. We are also running a race to announce a victory. We are in a marathon to share the Good News that there is victory in Jesus Christ. We are running to Jesus. Our eyes are on the Master. Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. 

I imagine that the Apostle Paul was a marathon runner when he was a young man. He uses running a race as a metaphor to describe our spiritual journey as disciples in so many of his letters. 

“Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: 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.” Philippians 3:13-14

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.” I Corinthians 9:24

“You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?” Galatians 5:7

“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. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” Hebrews 12:1-2a

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 2 Timothy 4:7 ~George DeTellis, Jr.