I like to run. I wear out two pairs of shoes every year religiously. I started running 30 years ago, in the late 1970’s when the jogging craze was in full force.
Lately I’ve been trying something new. I’ve been running in a new way. For over thirty years we’ve been trained to run landing on our heels with thick soled running shoes and to role forward. It turns out that our body is designed to run with our feet landing toward the front, on the ball of the foot rather than the heel. The muscles of the whole leg become a shock absorber and spring as the leg flexes.
The result of our running incorrectly is that many people only last a decade or so before the cushions in their knees give out. And the human body is designed for one thing, to run a long way, to run farther than any other animal in the world. We are evolved to be distance runners, to wear our prey down by outrunning them.
So I’ve been running differently, trying something new, this new wisdom about the human body. And it’s hard. It is strange how something as small as changing where my foot hits the ground, only a few inches difference, has cut the distance I run almost in half. I wear out more quickly, my whole leg gets tired. I am almost having to start all over again after thirty years. But those aches in my joints are gone. This middle aged dog is learning a new trick.
Trying something new.
It is hard. We rarely do it.
Most of the time we just keep doing the same things, the same patterns, the same expectations and distractions, the same mistakes, we get set in our ways.
Sometimes something comes along and shocks us into a change.
Usually something bad happens, like a heart attack and a change in life style and attitude follows.
Or the collapse of relationships, due to addiction or emotional exhaustion. We just come to the end of our selves and there is nothing left. We have to live differently, start over if we are going to continue at all.
Most of the time we can’t make the change, or only a little of a change, we fall back into almost the same mistakes that we have always made.
Sin is more than anything dull and repetitive, the same thing over and over, a tremendous waste of time.
Sometimes change comes about because something wonderful happens, something sets us free, and we are able to walk again, only we have to learn to walk all over again. Love comes to town and the dead place inside us wakes up and comes alive.
Something new is always happening to God’s people.
And they are always having to start all over again, to learn to walk and run all over again.
The exodus out of Egypt across the wilderness.
The return from exile in Babylon across the wilderness.
There is always a wilderness time of starting over after something new happens, retraining, rehab.
Something is happening, John proclaims, something new.
It is time to start over again, God is coming, things are going to change, we are going into the wilderness once again.
Love is coming to town.
The forgiveness of sins is coming to town.
What does it mean when we say that we believe in the forgiveness of sin?
What does it look like to really believe in forgiveness?
To live and walk and run with forgiveness?
The shackles are broken, the captives set free.
The hold of sin that keeps us stuck in the same ole, same ole mistakes, that hold has been forgiven, taken away.
The problem is that we too often think that forgiveness is about letting someone get away with something. That is childish.
The forgiveness of sin is so much more. It is about being set free from slavery.
To believe in forgiveness, to live with forgiveness is to break every chain, every lock, every fence, every bond, every shackle, every prison.
To finally be free to love.
The power of forgiveness has entered into the world.
This isn’t about anything as petty as seeing what we can get away with.
This is about learning to crawl, so that we can learn to walk, so that we can learn to run, so that we can learn to fly.
This is about having to start all over, to retrain, retread, rehab.
And it is hard, and it is wonderful.
What does it mean to believe in the forgiveness of sin? To really believe? To be that free?
God is doing something new.
God is starting over.
God is learning to be human.
Prepare the way.