Follow the White Tape

He is risen!
He is risen, indeed!

This morning, God in his providence provided us with the perfect text for Resurrection Sunday, and we didn’t even have to do anything. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn to the Hebrews 12, and we will be taking up the first two verses together.

I’d like to frame our time in these two verses with a story from an event in WWII that you probably already know I am very interested in, the Normandy Beach invasion, or D-Day. This was arguably one of the more important turning points in the war for the Allies—as they went on offense, aiming to retake France, and ultimately Europe, from he Axis forces.

You probably know the story: The Allies planned for two years for the operation, code-named Overlord, which was a massive amphibious assault of the French coast, straight into the teeth of entrenched German positions, complete with buried mines, razor wire, vehicle barriers, and fortified machine gun and artillery positions.

Many, many men died as waves of soldiers jumped out of their landing boats, and hurled themselves into machine gun fire. More were grievously wounded and killed by those landmines as they won the beach and attempted to take the hill overlooking it.

The heaviest casualties obviously came from those first waves of brave men, many of whom discovered the hidden mines by stepping on them and dying. As they progressed in the operation, at great cost, they began to clear safe paths through the minefields and obstacles, which engineers marked with white tape that basically signaled “Follow through here.”

And so paths were laid for those who came behind at the cost of blood and suffering and young lives, ultimately resulting in the beach being taken, and the war turning.

This morning, Hebrews 12:1–2 is pointing us at the white tape. It’s preaching to us: “Here is the path you are to follow. One who bled and suffered and poured out his life has walked this path before you. Others have already followed after him, and they are watching. Run this way, and run with endurance. Don’t fall back. Don’t step off to the left or to the right. Run!”

And so we open the Scriptures this morning that God might spur us further up and further in to the glorious, indestructible joy of his Son, who ran his race to the finish line, who endured shame and wrath and death to bring us God’s approval, love, and grace.

We learn that we were not made to sit, to coast, to wander through a life with no meaning—but that the God who made us has laid before us a race to run, and run with endurance to the end.

But we learn as well that we are emphatically not trailblazers or explorers, but rather pilgrims following after a great host who has gone before us, who were themselves following after the great Trailblazer, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Look with me, if you would, at Hebrews 12:1–2; this is the Word of the Living God:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

-Hebrews 12:1–2

There are three parts to this text—a what, a why, and a how.

The what is an imperative, or a command: Run.
The why is the witnesses: Run because you are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, who have gone before us in this same race.
The how is help in obeying the what. How can I run this race? And we’ll find four very practical helps here.
And what we find is that all three of these things—the what, the why, and the how—all orbit around the trailblazing glory of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, and enthronement. Let’s take each of them up in turn.