Piercing the ramble of the crowds was a voice calling me to compete. My track coach’s voice was sharp and direct, driving me to get myself over to the starting line immediately.
“West, I need you to do the four.”
Really?!
I’m going to represent West Memphis High School in an event at this meet?!
After shedding my surprise I hustled to the starting line. I was only at this Saturday event as a source of free labor. The baseball team, of which I was a part, was required to work that meet. I was dressed out in my track uni because I was also on the cross country track team.
None of us were expected to compete. Coach had us dress out just in case we were needed for a distance race. I despised the threads. Short athletic shorts and a tank top jersey didn’t match my grunge today, 90210 tomorrow, sense of style.
My job was resetting hurdles. Standing in at just shy of 5′ 5″, the hurdles felt nearly my height and were cumbersome to get into place for someone my size. We had just finished moving them off the track when coach called my name.
As I trotted to the starting area I was preparing my mind for the mile, four laps around the track. The excitement was different for this race when compared to the cross country meets because we had bleachers full of folks watching. Feeling the nervous buzz for the first time was a new experience for me at this track meet. This would be my only track meet. The reason will be obvious shortly.
Being a back-of-the-pack kind of chap on the cross country team left me pondering why coach was having me run the mile at this meet. The first cross country race of the year saw me leg out the final four-hundred meters in a sprint to stay out of last place!
Stretching and breathing, I set up into the my block while the other high school athletes did the same. Contorting into such an odd position to start the mile didn’t seem normal or appropriate but, hey, I was going to do it and hopefully impress coach along the way.
I don’t recall if they started the race with a gun, I just remember hearing the pop and taking off … on my mile pace. Disbelief overcame me as I watched the other contestants sprinting out of the blocks, leaving me in the dust. I chuckled with delight, thinking that these guys were all going to gas out. This was going to be an easy win!
That’s exactly what I thought … until I got just past halfway around the track and saw the other competitors finish their first lap and stop. I quickly pieced that mental puzzle together and the evolving circumstances smacked into me like a crash-test-dummy-driven-car hitting a barrier, this was the four as in four hundred, not four laps! I was completely alone in dead LAST place, so far behind the field that it was embarrassing.
I starting sprinting, well, at least it’s what I call sprinting, hoping that no one would notice how far I trailed the pack. Not a chance! I was so far behind it’s as if the crowd thought I needed sympathy and clapped and cheered as I sprinted out the home stretch.
The blood rushed to my face as I crossed the finish line way behind the other racers. Probably a combination of my humiliation and the additional blood flow from having run the race. My baseball teammates gave me a lot of crap for my putrid performance.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but that finish began a rough stretch for me as far as athletics were concerned. Baseball and track would each soon be afterthoughts. Maybe I was missing the signals that I was in the wrong race as far as life is concerned as well.
Don’t we all do that?
End up in the wrong race as far as life is concerned. Our dreams don’t pan out and our realities represent how we’ve survived strained, stressful and surprising circumstances rather than living out the expectations with which we began our journey.
I would argue that many biblical characters encounter a similar dilemma, even some of those we consider the most holy among them. One such person is an individual who was held in high regard by his contemporaries, which included our King, Jesus Christ.
John the Baptist’s ministry is one example, among many, of this phenomenon occurring among people of faith in Scripture. After starting well, as a voice in the wilderness calling Israel to repentance and to their Messiah, the baptizer found himself in the wrong race.
John was well acquainted with the correct race. He welcomed Christ in baptism. He knew Christ was greater. However, it appears from the Scriptural account that as Christ’s mission diverged from his own, he began to question and doubt. It seems from the text that Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t living up to his own perception of the Messiah.
It is possible that John’s view of the Messiah may have been, at least partially, informed by the culture at the time. During John’s ministry Israel was subjected to, and occupied by, Rome.
The great expectation of the coming Messiah was that he would spearhead a revolt that would drive Rome out of the promised land and topple the entire Roman Empire, supplanting it with a new empire based out of Jerusalem.
The Messiah was expected to reign from David’s throne over the nations from Jerusalem.
One reason I think this is the case is found in the reason for his arrest by Herod. John was critical of Herod’s marriage to Herodias because she was his sister-in-law (Matthew 14:4; Mark 16:18). The prophet wasn’t wrong in his analysis of the relationship, but his engagement left him entangled with a political figure willing to use such power to silence dissent.
Herod decided to neutralize the threat posed by the baptizer’s popularity and attempted to silence him through imprisonment.
As John sat in that dark, dank, desperate cell his doubts grew. He was hearing from his own disciples about Christ’s ministry. Let’s be real, a revolt-leading Messiah isn’t going to teach the Sermon on the Mount!
So, John sent his disciples to Jesus with a pressing question. I think this question provides more evidence that Jesus defied John’s conceptualization of the Messiah.
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
-Matthew 11:3b, NRSV
Sop up this question with a biscuit and enjoy it’s full flavor in your mouth. John just asked Jesus if he was really the Messiah. The same John who baptized Jesus, recognized the superiority of Christ’s ministry, and pointed people his way!
John doubted.
The same John who leapt in his mother’s womb when Mary was present while pregnant with this same Jesus.
That John is the same one expressing his doubt about his own understanding.
And that’s a good thing.
I wish I had doubted my own understanding enough to ask my coach to clarify which race I was to run before I suffered that humiliating defeat. Instead, I had to endure the price of my own misplaced confidence.
Many of us are running the wrong races due to our own misplaced confidence as well. Our Americanized church culture has made us fearful of voicing our doubts. Our church culture teaches that doubt is antithetical to faith.
However, truly, the opposite of faith is certainty.
Faith requires uncertainty, otherwise it would cease to be faith.
John’s imprisonment was the result of the same misplaced confidence.
The most remarkable thing about this moment is what Jesus reveals to us about God in his response to John’s skeptical query.
“Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.””
-Matthew 11:4-6, NRSV
Our Lord validated John’s question.
He didn’t critique this prisoner for doubting but instead corrected his view of who the Messiah is and gave him the opportunity to accept. His kingdom is centered on the outcasts and those in need, not in taking political power and dominating others.
Then Jesus validated John’s identity.
“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
-Matthew 11:11, NRSV
Our King met John in his doubts, answered them with truth, and validated his role in the kingdom of heaven.
This is God.
This is love.
This is the way.
This is the example from which we can both learn and follow.
If you have doubts, trust that Jesus is the same now as he was then and that you will find the same love as did John when you seek him. If you encounter someone strangled by doubts, rather than rendering them as apostate take the time to meet them in such doubts with the truth of God’s grace and reinforce their identity in Christ.
Let’s do our best to make sure that we are facing our doubts. We need to do this so that we can be sure we’re running the right race. Let’s encourage others as they do the same.
Remember, this promise applies to our doubts:
“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
-Matthew 7:7-8, NRSV
Grace and peace!
If you liked this post, you just might enjoy my book, What He Said: Living the Sermon on the Mount, Transforming American Culture.
You can also follow along with me on my journeys through men’s mental health issues and Christian renovation at the links below:
That’s Me in the Corner – My journey through men’s mental health issues
Xvangelical – My journey through Christian renovation
Mark West, Xvangelical 