Good morning. It is hard to define or to quantify the effect of cheering on performance. Sure, sports teams from high school through professional often have cheerleaders, but are their efforts for the benefit of the players or to excite and involve the spectators? Perhaps some of both, but it has been established that performance increases when the competitor is being cheered and encouraged.
Anyone who has tried to run competitively knows what it means to push beyond the pain. If you are giving it your all, you will come to a point where it hurts. That is when cheering and encouragement become telling. When cheered and encouraged we are more able to find the inner strength to push past the pain, to not give up, to do our best.
In ancient times, the greatest sporting event was the marathon. The length was similar to what it is today, between 27 and 30 miles. But in those ancient times the course was not on paved roads, it was more like what we now call a “steeple chase”. This means it was cross-country, over hills and mountains, through streams and rocky areas. It was not for the faint of heart. The course wasn’t marked out. Instead, they had “pilots”. These were runners who were assigned to sections of the course and when the competitors would come into sight they would run ahead of them, showing them the way for that section of the race. If you lost sight of those pilots, you were lost, and the race was lost. There were no people or places along the way to provide water, and when they ran in the heat of the Mediterranean region, water was required. So, each runner carried flasks made from animal skins filled with water. When each ran dry, the runners cast off the weight and ran on. At about the 20-mile mark there would be groups of people gathered. Those people would cheer and encourage the runners, especially if they knew one of them personally. The runners would always say that it was the cheering, those shouts of encouragement that made the difference when the pain was becoming too great for them to continue.
To be a marathon runner took talent and training. It required a level of commitment like few other human endeavors. The writer to the Letter to the Hebrews uses the metaphor of the marathon to describe Christian life: 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.Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. Hebrews 12:1-3
As we run our Christian race we do not run alone. We are surrounded by “a great cloud of witnesses”. We need to know what weighs us down and cast those things aside. And we must always keep our eyes on the pilot, the One who runs ahead showing us the way. His name is Jesus, and those who follow Him never lose.
Vern