pass the baton

My 15-year-old grandson is a long-distance runner, like the wind.  He keeps breaking his own records and those of others.  I enjoy watching him compete, and think of St. Paul's analogy of our running the race of faith, ever moving toward the finish line with Jesus ahead of us, beside us, and behind us, encouraging us on. as I do Noah when he runs.

However, I must confess that I find this analogy only partly satisfying.  It ignores the reality of the Christian community, in which we run together, alongside each other, as well as ahead and behind those who have come before and will follow us.  None of us runs alone or "makes it" with God all by ourselves.  Instead, we've been introduced, exhorted, comforted, corrected, carried, and inspired by so many others, that great cloud of witnesses both earthly and heavenly, too numerous to measure or count.

It's the point of Psalm 78, which reads in part:

[God] made a covenant with Jacob and gave Israel a law, which He commanded our forefathers to teach their children, that their posterity might know it, and the children which were yet unborn; with the intent that when they came up they might show it to their children, that they might put their trust in God...

So let's look at the race of faith like a perpetual relay, in which wave after wave of disciples run their lap together, side by side, and then pass the baton of faith to the next generations.  In a relay, the hand-off is key.  Let's firmly grab hold of the faith given to us from prior generations, run our lap faithfully, and then carefully pass the baton to those who are yet to come.