32 And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—³³who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions,³⁴quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.³⁵Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection.³⁶Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.³⁷They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two,^* they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented—³⁸of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

39 Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised,⁴⁰since God had provided something better so that they would not, without us, be made perfect.   <!– 12 –>

The Example of Jesus

12Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely,^* and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,²looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of^* the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

The pioneer and perfecter of faith

We remember that the author of Hebrews has already allowed the crucified Jesus to bust the myth of the promised land, not by dismissing it altogether but rather by interpreting it as the city of justice and peace which God has prepared for those who want it, especially for those great saints who want it so much that they become pilgrims and strangers on the earth. He can still speak conventionally about those who conquered kingdoms but his real focus is on those who for the sake of their true homeland suffered the worst that people could do to them, “of whom the world was not worthy”, that is, who exposed the evil of the world as unworthy of its best inhabitants.  As was the case with Bishop Juan Gerardi, murdered in 1998 for exposing the violence of the Guatamalan Army. It is in the light of Jesus, the pioneer, that the author can see this truth. By His sacrificial life and death He has revealed the true meaning of the “land of promise”, freeing it from national and racial distortions; and shines the light on the real heroes and heroines of faith.

Jesus is described as pioneer and perfecter: pioneer in that he makes the hard journey into the heart of evil, not grimly but willingly, looking towards God’s city of justice and joy; perfecter because he goes the whole distance with evil and leads his people into God’s goodness. I grew up with John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” and have always been attracted by its sober heroism:

Hobgoblin nor foul fiend

Can daunt his spirit;

He knows he at the end

Shall life inherit.

Then fancies fly away,

He’ll fear not what men say,

He’ll labour night and day

To be a pilgrim.

St Paul asks somewhere, “Which of us is really up for all this?” In face of the cloud of witnesses mentioned by the author of Hebrews, I’d have to answer, “Well, not me, really,” but that doesn’t mean the vision is irrelevant.