The Obligation of the Sent

On the evening of October 20, 1968, the Olympic marathon in Mexico City was long over. Mamo Wolde of Ethiopia had crossed the finish line more than an hour earlier. The medal ceremony was done. The stadium had nearly emptied. Then, from the darkness of the tunnel, a figure emerged — limping, his right leg wrapped in bloody bandages, his shoulder visibly dislocated.

John Stephen Akhwari of Tanzania had fallen hard during a collision around the nineteen-kilometer mark. Eighteen runners had already dropped out. No one would have faulted him for doing the same. Yet he hobbled those final meters around the track while the few thousand remaining spectators rose to their feet.

When a reporter asked him afterward why he had not simply quit, Akhwari gave an answer that has echoed across the decades: "My country did not send me five thousand miles to start the race. They sent me five thousand miles to finish the race."

Akhwari understood something about duty that the writer of Hebrews understood about faith. "Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." The race marked out — not chosen, not invented, but given. We did not send ourselves into this life of faith. The Almighty sent us. And being sent carries an obligation that outlasts pain, discouragement, and the temptation to quit when the stadium empties and no one seems to be watching.