Walking around the garden is part of my daily exercise. Vanity will out of course and you’ll forgive me for saying there are other things I do to keep ticking over. But I noticed a while ago that I was beginning to wear a path through the grass in our back area. It’s my path. No one has travelled this way so frequently in recent days. Which is a bit like our life’s experience. We may go through similar ups and downs to many others but no one has experienced them quite like you or me. Someone once said: ‘God doesn’t make carbon copies.‘ That was before the days of photocopies and computer print outs but you get the idea. We are all unique individuals. There has been no one like you in the history of humankind.
And yet it can be comforting and encouraging to know that others and their experiences have beaten a path before you and have done so with faith in the God revealed by Jesus. I consider my myeloma experience has been made easier in knowing that others have been here before me, have come through it, and are doing well. It has been a particular blessing keeping company with Father Pat Currie of St Joseph’s himself a myeloma sufferer whose cheerfulness and faith have been an encouragement. It’s good to know you are not entirely on your own.
That is surely what the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews had in mind when he wrote to a number of Christian communities under pressure. He reminded them of those who had beaten the path of faith before them. He describes faith as ‘being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.’ (Hebrews 11: 1) And then he provides what has been described as a ‘roll of honour’ of those who have embodied this faith. He refers to them as ‘a great cloud of witnesses’ who stand as an encouragement to all Christians as they seek to live faithful lives, ‘to run with perseverance the race marked out for us.’ (Hebrews 12: 1) But then he shows how this is done by pointing to Jesus, the greatest encourager of all, ‘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 the throne of God.’ (Hebrews 12: 2) Then the call to perseverance and the One in whom this can be maintained:
‘Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.’ (Hebrews 12: 3)
He has walked our way before us, beaten a path where pain and death were known and yet in the end were overcome by the power of His resurrection.
Perseverance is not just gritting your teeth and ‘getting on with it.’ It may seem like that many a time but what makes the difference for believers is the awareness of those who have travelled this way before us and trusted in the promises of God. And even greater than that is the knowledge that Jesus has travelled this way, that ‘he was tempted/tested in every way, just as we are’ and has enabled us to ‘find grace to help us in our time of need.’ (Hebrews 4: 15-16)
