Daily Manna · Day 87 · March 28
The Finish Line
“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
An old man in his eighties is being led into a stadium. He walks slowly, and the crowd is already roaring before he comes into sight.
His name was Polycarp, and he was the bishop, or chief pastor, of the church in Smyrna. Irenaeus, who heard him preach as a boy, wrote that Polycarp had been taught by the apostles themselves and used to speak of his talks with John. Around the middle of the second century he was arrested and brought before the Roman governor, who offered him the usual way out: swear by the fortune of the emperor, curse Christ, and go home. His own church wrote an account of his death soon afterwards, and it records his answer. He said he had served Christ for eighty-six years, and Christ had never done him any wrong, so how could he speak against his King who had saved him? He was not defiant about it. When the soldiers first came for him, he had asked for an hour to pray, and they let him. He prayed so long that some of them were sorry they had come to arrest such a godly old man.
Paul's three statements in today's passage have the same shape as Polycarp's life: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." Notice what is not on the list. Paul does not count churches or crowds or results. All three statements are about staying: staying in the fight, staying on the road, and keeping hold of what he had been trusted with. Paul was a prisoner when he wrote it. One verse earlier he says, "the time of my departure is at hand," and he knew how it would end. The crown he expects is not a private trophy for special service, either, because it is given "not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." What counts is loving the truth that Jesus is coming back. That is a low bar, and also a searching one.
Nobody really decides to quit. It happens when you skip the thing you promised, and then skip it again, until the person who cared feels like someone you used to be.
So think of that old man walking slowly into the stadium. Eighty-six years of faithfulness was not one burst of courage. It was a very long line of ordinary evenings, and one of them is tonight. Fifteen minutes with God tonight is enough to make it one that counts, and the Lord who kept Polycarp and Paul is the same Lord who will keep you.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 87 is The Day Is Thine (Psalm 74:16).