I Am He Whom Thou Seekest

I was never much of a runner. The sport of competing against other runners never interested me. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I'm not very fast in the first place. But I have had some very good times playing other sports and I know that for many of them you have to strip down so that your ordinary street clothes don't get in the way. That's the image the Hebrew writer borrows as he opens chapter twelve with these words:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. - Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV

His therefore connects us to the previous chapter's parade of men and women who walked in faith, but did not receive the better country they longed for. They are for us a great cloud of witnesses. In spite of their numerous frustrations, losses, grief and pain they did not give up their faith. They continued to believe that the LORD would one day somehow fulfill His promises. They surround us with their faith. They are our surrounding cloud. We live and breath their witness and are thus encouraged.

Therefore let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run the race that is set before us. 

Consider what he is saying.

Faith is not wishful thinking or whistling in the dark or crossing your fingers superstitiously. Faith is putting your trust in a person, a particular PERSON whom you are totally and completely convinced is able to and will keep  his promises. There is power in that relationship. The whole Bible is filled with stories of men and women who had this person to PERSON relationship with their LORD. The Hebrews writer has just been pointing to them.

A personal note here. I can still vividly remember how I was ushered into such a relationship during my final college year. I had already committed myself to preparing for the pastoral ministry, but I had deep-seated doubts. I was not convinced that the LORD wanted or even offered such a relationship. Yes, I knew many objective facts about Jesus, His birth, life, suffering, death and resurrection. But somehow I wanted more. I wanted to meet Him face to face, person to person. I was, in truth, running from Him. For a long time I was the young man Francis Thompson describes in his moving poem, The Hound of Heaven.

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes, I sped;

And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat—and a Voice beat

More instant than the Feet—

"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

And then one day He found me, found me in the writings of C S Lewis, a man to whom I and thousands of others owe an eternal debt. My LORD took the Gospel and spoke it to me in the words of Lewis' stories. 

I can only pray that one day you too, my friend, will also stop running away from Him and find yourself surrounded not only with a cloud of witnesses, but also with that eternal cloud of His love for you, the same love that drove Him from the halls of heaven to be born of a virgin and laid in a lowly manger in a tiny town called Bethlehem. There love waits us all. 

Francis Thompson put it like this, 

Now of that long pursuit

Comes on at hand the bruit;

That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:

"And is thy earth so marred,

Shattered in shard on shard?

Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!

Strange, piteous, futile thing,

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?

Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said),

"And human love needs human meriting:

How hast thou merited—

Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?

Alack, thou knowest not

How little worthy of any love thou art!

Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,

Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee I did but take,

Not for thy harms,

But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.

All which thy child's mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:

Rise, clasp My hand, and come."

Halts by me that footfall:

Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?

"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,

I am He Whom thou seekest!

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."