Helping One Another Finish the Race

The 2014 Boston Marathon attracted much more attention this year. The one year anniversary of the bombing at the marathon made it a much more public event. Morning news shows broadcast from Boston. The evening newscast had a re-cap much more complete than a final segment. And for those of us in Caledonia, the fact that Linda Esch participated increased the interest locally. For me, having it on the Monday following Easter made it easier for me to watch. Following a full week of worship I always take Easter Monday as a day of rest. Which meant that I could watch much of the marathon online.

If you followed the marathon, you heard stories of individuals and groups of people for whom running the marathon or being present at the marathon was extremely healing. Some runners were present when the bombs went off and were not allowed to finish in 2013. Some runners were spectators a year ago and provided medical assistance to the injured. For such people, many of whom are suffering now from survivor's guilt or post-traumatic stress, just being on Boylston Street brought healing.

One of the stories that came out of the marathon happened long after American Meb Keflezighi and Kenya's Rita Jeptoo (and Caledonia's Linda Esch) crossed the finish line. At the 26 mile mark, just two tenths of a mile from the finish line, a Massachusetts runner collapsed. His legs were too weak to go any further. At that point, one by one - until there were five - other marathon runners, their own bodies exhausted from the run, helped the fallen runner get to the finish line. Wesley Lowrey of the Washington Post described it with these words:

As the runner was carried toward the finish, now just a few blocks away, the man cried out to his new teammates. “Let me walk it. Let me walk across the finish. I need to finish,” he urged those who carried his limp body. The five were now just a few hundred feet from the finish line. As they crowd roared, they set him down.

“We made a decision,” Meyer recalled. “Let’s put him down. Let’s let him walk across on his own.”

Then, individually, they each finished the race.
Even for runners, a marathon is a long run. It takes months of hardwork, training, and dedication.  The goal is always to finish the race. Life itself has been described as a marathon. There are days/weeks/months/years that we struggle to keep moving forward.  We want to throw in the towel. Give up. Wish it would end. Now.
Not everyday is like that of course. But when life does seem like a never ending marathon one of our tasks as people of God is to help one another finish the race. We stop focusing on ourselves and remember that God's call to us is to love one another. One of the ways we show that love to one another is by helping them finish the race.

As a pastor I've seen individuals and groups of people stop and help carry someone towards the finish line countless times. A word of kindness or encouragement is spoken to someone in the pits; a prayer shawl is wrapped around an individual facing cancer; a meal is brought to the home of a family who has suffered a loss; a listening ear is given to the person in the midst of a personal struggle; a teacher sits down with a student to help him learn how to read; $500 is given to the school so that children without funds for milk break can drink milk; the list is seemingly endless.

Thank you for the many ways you share God's love with others, and for the ways you exhibit the same caring done by the five runners who stopped to carry a fellow runner to the finish line.

The full story can be read here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/04/22/the-story-behind-that-boston-marathon-photo-of-runners-carrying-a-competitor-toward-the-finish/