5th Sunday in Lent 2025c

Old Testament – Isaiah 43:16-21

New Testament – Philippians 3:4b-14

 

“Closing the Gap”

 

INTRODUCTION: In about four months, on July 7th to be exact, 100 people are going to line up to start one of the hardest foot races in all the earth. 

 

Known as the Badwater Ultramarathon, the participants will begin their quest at the Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park in CA., which at 282 feet below sea level is the lowest point in all of North America. From there, they will set off for the Whitney Portal, the Trailhead to Mount Whitney which is just a mere 135 miles away!

 

One of the hottest places on the earth, the temperatures in Death Valley regularly exceed 120 degrees, the total elevation gain on the way to Mount Whitney also covers over 14,500 feet. Reportedly, there are sections of highway that get so hot during the race, runners are forced to actually jog on the white lines marking the edges of the road, or they risk burning their feet from the heat rising from the asphalt.     

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Oh, and did I mention there is actually a time limit for finishing? Yep, participants have 48 hours to cover the 135 miles or they get the dreaded “DNF” acronym stuck next to their name in race results - meaning, “did not finish.” 

 

So no wonder the Badwater Ultramarathon is considered one of the hardest races in all the world and that race crews of 2 to 5 people who follow runners on the course with supplies are an essential component for competing. To complete the Badwater Ultramarathon, after all, requires a huge amount of stamina and commitment and tenacity.                

                

ONE: Well, we hear about such a demanding and hard race, and it’s easy to see why the Apostle Paul loved to use running as a metaphor for the life of faith. For faith, just like running, requires its own kind of stamina, commitment, and resolve, right? 

 

Yep, Paul seemed to intuitively understand that running was an apropos way for talking about faith because it too demands its own degree of tenacity and endurance. Or as he told the Corinthians when discussing the nature of faith, “Run in such a way that you may win…Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable garland, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air…”  

 

And a big part of Paul’s race of faith was to know Jesus Christ more and more with each passing day. And to know Christ for Paul is much more than just a warm feeling we get to have in our hearts. It’s also a way of being in the world. To know Christ, in other words, means to also strive to live like Christ.

 

It’s to participate in his life of sacrifice and service by literally doing the same thing with our own lives. Or as Paul puts it: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.”

 

That’s also why in chapter 2 of Philippians Paul can talk about the need for people to imitate Christ and to look not to their own interests but to the interests of others. In the same way that Christ lived a life of servanthood, so should his followers.

 

The late Fred Craddock liked to put it this way: “Do you know what Paul thought? Paul thought that if you were going to be a Christian, then you should be like Jesus. So then, what do you do with your pride? What do you do with your own agenda? What do you do with your own selfishness? What do you do with your own independence? What do you do with your own calendar to which you may or may not add a little church? You take it to the [trash] in order that you may live like him.” In other words, you throw all those things away into the garbage bin.

  

TWO: Obviously, though, some things are easier said than done. And although we might often speak of the need to live like Christ that hardly means doing so is an easy thing.  

 

For Christ’s life of compassion and service and sacrifice, well, it’s hardly a good fit with our world, is it? Look, it doesn’t take a genius with an IQ of 150 to figure out that seeking to live like Christ might very easily mean we frequently find ourselves swimming against the tide, so to speak.

 

No doubt about it, Christ’s forgiving and merciful ways can easily be a strange way to live given the sometimes ungracious and unsavory character of the world around us. And yet, again and again we are told by Paul (and even Jesus himself!) such is the nature of discipleship. It isn’t to get Jesus into our lives, but rather to get our lives more and more into his.

 

Perhaps that helps explain why Paul is willing to openly confess his own struggles and failings when it comes to living a Christ-like life. 

 

After exhorting and encouraging the Philippians to get busy with the tough task of conforming their lives to Christ’s, Paul isn’t afraid or ashamed to let them know he is pretty sympathetic to their plight. 

 

“Not that I have already obtained this or have reached such a goal,” says Paul, “but I press on to make it my own…forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Jesus Christ.”

 

And so it goes sometimes when trying to live like Christ. The job can be a difficult one, even for someone like the Apostle Paul. For life is more than happy to provide us with reasons to abandon the quest.       

 

THREE: No wonder the theologian Scott Bader-Saye likes to claim that courage is one of the most important virtues for people of faith. 

 

For to be courageous isn’t to simply deny or ignore feelings of fear or danger, but rather to still pursue the good despite those very feelings. “The courageous person recognizes danger,” says Bader-Saye, “but refuses to let fear get in the way of doing what is right, good, and necessary.”   

 

The famous radio host and storyteller John Henry Faulk used to tell of growing up in East Texas with his cousin Billy in the 1940s. As nine-year-olds, the two loved to make-believe at being Texas Rangers. Roaming around on their stick horses and brandishing their toy six-shooters, the two would battle imaginary robbers, bandits, and other sorts of villainous characters.

 

Well, one day John Henry’s mother sent the two courageous rangers out to investigate a ruckus in the chicken coop. Bravely entering the coop, the two boys began peering into each of the nests to make sure everything was copacetic. 

 

Needless to say, when the two mock Rangers suddenly saw a black snake staring back at them from one of the nests they were peering into, they suddenly lost much of their bravado. In fact, as John Henry Faulk liked to tell it, the two boys quickly added a new side entrance to the coop as they fled in a panic.

 

Later, while the two boys were nursing the bruises and scrapes caused by their quick exit, John Henry's mother wondered how the two bravest lawmen in all of East Texas could so easily allow their fear to get the better of them. "After all,” said John Henry’s Mother, “everybody knows a black snake can't hurt nobody." 

 

To which cousin Billy, still rubbing his bruises, reportedly replied, “Yes, Ma'am, black snakes can’t hurt nobody, but they sure can cause you to hurt yourself." 

 

And so it often goes with fear when we allow it to become disordered and excessive. It can cause harm to everybody, including even ourselves. No wonder courage is so important to our faith.  

 

FOUR: One of the adult Sunday school classes is currently reading a book by Adam Hamliton. 

 

Called The Message of Jesus: Words that Changed the World, at one point Hamilton discusses the difference between the way the world is right now, and the way God wants it to be. The world presently, of course, is kind of a hot mess, right? The environment is overheating, long standing alliances are eroding, polarization in our nation still feels really high, and yes, people continue to die from wars, famine, and diseases. 

 

But then there is the way God intends for the world to be - it’s what Jesus calls the Kingdom of God. And the Kingdom of God, of course, is quite different from the  world as it exists right now. In the Kingdom of God, people aren’t dying from wars, famine, diseases, and, yes, the nations even live in peace. 

 

And the job of Jesus’ followers, according to Hamilton,  is to work on closing the gap between those two worlds. It’s to shrink the distance between the way the world is right now and the way God wishes for it to be. And how do we do that? Well, by living lives of grace and mercy and charity and forgiveness just like Jesus did. That’s how. 

 

There’s a story about a traveler walking down a road one day when a man on horseback flew by in a rush. He had blood on his hands and he was driving the horse furiously with a whip.    

 

Moments later a group of riders appeared hot on his trail. Coming to a stop they asked the traveler if he had seen a man with blood on his hands pass by.  

 

“Yes,” replied the man. “Who is he?”

“An evil-doer,” said the leader of the chase group. 

“And you pursue him in order to bring him to justice?”

“No,” said the leader. “We pursue him in order to show him the way.”   

 

CONCLUSION: So discipleship is always more than just believing certain things about Jesus, as important as beliefs are. 

 

It’s to also work on closing the gap between the way the world is, and the way God wants it to be, right?  Through our own lives of grace and charity and love, it’s to show people there’s another way, a better way, a third way.  

 

Why, Jesus even had a name for it. The Kingdom of God, he liked to call it. The Kingdom of God.   

 

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are God’s judgments and how inscrutable God’s ways! For from God and through God and to God are all things. To God be glory forever. Amen.