The Finish Line

A man in his eighties being led into a stadium, walking slowly, the crowd already loud before he is in sight.

Polycarp was bishop of Smyrna and had known people who knew the apostles. Around the middle of the second century he was arrested, brought before the proconsul, and offered the standard way out: swear by the emperor's fortune, curse Christ, and go home. The account of his death, written by his own church shortly afterwards, records his answer. Eighty and six years have I served him, and he never did me any wrong; how then can I blaspheme my King who saved me? He was not defiant about it. He asked for an hour to pray first, and the guards let him have it, and he prayed so long they regretted coming.

Paul's three phrases in this passage are the same shape. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Notice what is not in the list. No churches counted. No crowds. No results at all. Every one of the three is about staying: staying in the fight, staying on the road, keeping hold of the thing entrusted. He wrote it in custody, having said one verse earlier that the time of my departure is at hand, and knowing perfectly well how it would end. And the crown he expects is explicitly not a personal trophy for exceptional service: not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. Loving that He is coming back is the qualifier. That is a low bar and a searching one.

Nobody decides to quit. It looks like skipping the thing you promised, then skipping it again, until the version of you that cared is somebody you used to be.

So: the old man walking slowly into the stadium. Eighty-six years is not a burst of courage. It is a very long series of unremarkable evenings, and one of them is tonight, and fifteen minutes is enough to make it one of the ones that counted.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 87 is The Day Is Thine (Psalm 74:16).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna