Exiles on the Run – Septuagesima Sunday

Fight the good fight with all thy might;
Christ is thy strength, and Christ thy right;
Lay hold on life, and it shall be
Thy joy and crown eternally.

A shark will sink if he does not keep swimming. A Christian shall succumb to the depths, should he not keep running.

A Christian is not one who sits idly. The call of our Master is, “Follow me.” There is a path to tread, a field to be plowed, and a race to be run. Are we running after our Master? Are we carrying our cross and following Him? Or are we sitting under a fig tree waiting on Jesus?

Christ has come, and we are called like Phillip to find our own Nathaniel to tell him “Come and see” the one “whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth.” (John 1:45, KJV). Let us not forget that Nathaniel, to his credit, heeded Phillip’s invitation to come and see. He shook the dust off his clothes and got moving to see just who is this Christ that Phillip was talking about.

Alas, I fear too many Christians sit in the dust, resting under the fig tree, full of deceit and deceiving ourselves.

The post-modern Church needs a reminder that Lent is near. We need to remember to shake off the dust from our feet for soon we shall return to the dust, as Ash Wednesday reminds us. Therefore, we need Gesimatide.

The Gesima’s are lost in the prayerbooks issued since 1979 but left as a modest option without a purpose in the 2019 ACNA edition. Perhaps due to their difficulty in pronunciation, many simply call these three Sundays “Pre-Lent” (which the classic prayerbooks acknowledge as an appropriate title), however, the Gesima’s have a two-fold gaze. First, each Gesima Sunday is named in a manner to reflect the approximate number of days until Pascha, that is, Easter morn. Septuagesima is nine Sundays before Easter Sunday, and the name reflects the Latin word for seventieth – as in seventy days before Easter, Sexagesima reflects the Latin word for sixtieth, and likewise, Quinquagesima stands for fiftieth. The Gesimatide countdown directs our hearts towards the resurrection in quiet anticipation. However, Gesimatide also bears a pre-Lenten feel to the season as reflected in our Sunday lessons and collects.

Run the straight race through God’s good grace,
Lift up thine eyes, and seek his face;
Life with its way before us lies;
Christ is the path, and Christ the prize.

Gesimatide is a time of sobriety that is lost in a world drunk on gorging itself and yet always ending up empty. Why does the Church need Gesimatide in this post-modern world with modern lectionaries? After all, we don’t have the time to add to our busy calendars, right?

Beloved in Christ, precisely because we overburden our calendars, and set the time according to this world is why we need Gesimatide.

The Gesima’s reminds us that Lent is near. As Ash Wednesday visibly reminds us, our death is near.

Therefore, how are we living? Are we running the race?

Or are we being trampled by our passions while running the wrong race, competing for the wrong prize, and finding ourselves at the end of life “as one that beateth the air”? (Epistle lesson, 1 Corinthians 9:26 KJV).

Consider Septuagesima a sober shaking of our shoulders by Christ. Our Lord is speaking to us through St. Paul’s epistle today, “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.” (1 Cor. 9:24, KJV). Americans instinctively understand competition. Why, within the week we witnessed the Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, and have an eye towards March Madness. If you run, and we all are running in a race, then you know only one will win. However, too many Christians have segregated their lives into a Christianity that sits idle in the pews on Sunday and runs the corporate rat race Monday through Friday. We can only serve one master – therefore choose today whom you shall serve. See (Matthew 6:24 and Joshua 24:14-15).

We all are running a race, but are you running the race that has a true prize? The world’s race is a deception that bears no crown, and frankly no winners, for the end is the same for all: sin and death. Let the world run after “a corruptible crown,” but as for you, run the race that awards “an incorruptible” crown. (1 Cor. 9:25, KJV). We celebrate in seventy days our Master winning the imperishable crown for us while wearing the crown of thorns. He calls us to strive and master ourselves and be “temperate in all things” as we finish the race. (1 Cor. 9:25, KJV).

Now is the time for preparation – not to vainly pat ourselves on the back for giving up some small modern convenience – but to discipline ourselves, our bodies, and our souls, for the journey that lasts longer than a forty-day Lent – for the race that bears the fruit of eternal life.

Remember, ye are exiles, and ye are on a journey out of Egypt. The Wilderness is not the final destination, there is Jerusalem above which is prepared for you and will descend upon the earth at the Last Day. Run as exiles. Run through this desert world. St. Paul explains he is not walking in this life, but running. Even Paul disciplines himself so that at the very end, despite the fact “I have preached to others” that should he fail to finish the race, he might find “myself should be a castaway.” (1 Cor. 9:27, KJV).

Let us take this time to find and question where in our lives we are running the wrong race and to course correct. Stop training for the wrong race and do not remain idle and fail to train oneself for the race God has put before you. Make a plan at this hour to tackle by Christ’s mighty power the sin that plagues you, and find your strength in His victory over death and the Devil through His own death. We are invited by St. Paul to run – but not with uncertainty, to fight – but not as swinging into the air, but to “discipline my body and bring it into subjection.” (1 Cor. 9:27, NKJV).

Cast care aside, lean on thy guide;
His boundless mercy will provide;
Trust, and thy trusting soul shall prove
Christ is its life, and Christ its love.

My dear beloved in Christ, perhaps this finds you dead in the ditch along the road. You have been discarded by the world in the race that is this life. You hear St. Paul’s words and you find discouragement because Satan has beaten you down.

Look up and lift up your eyes. See your Savior is on the road and He is the good Samaritan who is picking you up. Just as Simon the Cyrene lifted Christ’s cross for a time and space, so too does Christ lift you up from your burden, from your sin, and death’s door. He is near, He is here even now, and His Holy Ghost shall strengthen you in your weakness, for Christ has relieved you of your heaven yoke. Christ our Lord, Christ our God, He has taken your heaviness and become our beast of burden.

Look up, and cast care aside, lean on thy guide for Easter is near, Advent is near, Christ is near. Drink from the well with the waters of eternal life, for Christ is your nourishment. St. Paul’s warning for us is not to forget we are born to run, for if we do not run away from sin, death, and Satan and towards Christ, then at the end we may find we never followed Christ. Our Lord Jesus’s Gospel for today is that the hour is never too late for you to join in the race that He has won.

Perhaps you find yourself this day guilty at “standing idle,” then listen to your Master who cries out, “Why stand ye here all the day idle?” (Gospel lesson, Matthew 20:6, KJV). Take up the call of our Master who “saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.” (Matt. 20:7, KJV). Jesus tells us that though He hires workers even at the eleventh hour, He shall share the bounty of His salvation with them. Christ pays and delivers us, latecomers, the same wages of life that the first-called received. “I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?” (Matt. 20:14-15, KJV).

Therefore, those who are running the race, remember to keep running the race that leads to life and do not yield to the troubles and roadblocks of this evil age. For those who sit idly by, hear and heed the call of Christ – come and see – and fight against the distractions and deceptions of a dying world. Remember the good news that despite our late call, “So the last shall be first, and the first last,” but never forget that “many be called, but few chosen.” (Matt. 20:16, KJV).

The time is now to callous our hands, deny our bodies, bear our cross, and put our hands to the plow without looking back at Babylon. May your Gesimatide be a holy preparation and a sanctified time of exercising for the race at hand. Let us this day pray to the Lord for His Holy Ghost to empower us to finish the race, and by God’s abundant grace, to be able to say of ourselves at the last hour the same words as St. Paul to young Timothy: “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. 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.” (2 Timothy 4:6-8, KJV).

Faint not nor fear, his arms are near;
He changeth not, and thou art dear;
Only believe, and thou shalt see
That Christ is all in all to thee.