Scripture Devotion
Before the running comes the stripping: lay aside every weight.
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith...”
Reflection
The image is a race run in a stadium, and the stands are full — a great cloud of witnesses, those who ran before and finished. But before the running comes a stripping: lay aside every weight, and the sin that so easily besets. A runner carries nothing unnecessary; the first act is to put down what slows you, both the obvious sin and the merely-heavy "weight" that isn't sin at all but still drags. And the race is run with patience — not a sprint, a sustained endurance — while looking unto Jesus. That's the fixed gaze that makes the running possible: eyes not on the competition, not on the distance left, not even on the cloud of witnesses, but on the one who both authored the faith and finishes it. Sunday is the day to lay the weights down again, and to fix the eyes where they belong before the week's race resumes.