The Crowd Who Finished
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
— Hebrews 12:1-2
Nobody knows who wrote this letter; the author never signs it. Its first readers were Christians who had already had property seized and had stood by friends in prison, and they were starting to wonder whether it was worth going on. The chapter before names Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses and Rahab, then moves on to people with no names at all: stoned, sawn in two, wandering in the mountains. Of many of them it says the same thing: they died without receiving what had been promised. In Greek, a cloud could simply mean a huge crowd. A witness is someone who gives testimony, and only later did that word come to name martyrs. So these people are not in the stands keeping score; their lives are testimony that it was worth it. Greek runners competed naked, so that nothing would catch or drag. The word for pioneer also means the one who goes first and opens the way. Saints are not exceptions from another world; they are proof that this race can be finished.