Shedding the Weight
By Don Westerberg--
Recently my mind has been reflecting on the idea of loss. Some of this has been prompted by the fact that my wife and I have lost dear friends to the pandemic over the past year. In addition, after 34 years as an educator in the same local high school, my position at that school became a casualty to the ripple-effects of the virus. So, as of July 1, 2020, I found myself unemployed for the first time since coming to Portland nearly 40 years ago.
For over four months, I filled out applications and sent out resumes. The result was that in November I received a phone call for an interview and was hired to do a graveyard shift stocking job at a local grocery store. I have been working there ever since.
This has been the catalyst for further reflections on loss, not because I am stuck on mourning the loss of my other job, but because in that three-month period I have “lost” thirty pounds!
This shedding of weight was not prompted by any conscious decision on my part to diet, or fulfilling some new year’s resolution. In fact, it occurred rather naturally as a consequence of hard work and my commitment to persevere, making the best of my new-found circumstances.
One day, on a whim, I Googled, “What everyday items weigh 30 lbs.?” The answer shocked me!
- 4 gallons of water!
- Your average 3-year-old!
- About 100 baseballs!
- The average weight of a high schooler's backpack!
I was definitely taken back by that last entry. I have seen the burden of adolescents’ backpacks weighing them down and the relief on their faces when they “weighed anchor” in my classroom, shedding their heavy totes.
I tend to think of losing things as a negative in my life, when, in fact, it can be a very positive experience of relief.
The writer of Hebrews sees it this way in his well-known discussion of the Christian life, pictured as the running of a race, in Hebrews 12:1-2.
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, . . .
I can’t tell you how much better I feel physically having lightened the load on my body by 30 lbs. And this has led me to consider how much better spiritually I would feel if I did the equivalent in my spiritual life, as this passage is encouraging us to do.
The writer seems to speak about two categories that we need to shed in this verse – weights and sins. We recognize easily that sin bogs us down in our race to follow after Jesus, but what about other hinderances that may not constitute sin, but nonetheless, hamper us in our progress toward Christlikeness? In Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of this passage he calls them “extra spiritual fat.”
You probably have seen the emails from our church encouraging us to utilize the tools they are offering (Lenten videos, etc.) to make the most of the upcoming Lenten season for some serious reflection on the health of our spiritual lives.
I want to encourage you, and myself, to make the most of this opportunity to shed some baggage. Lent has often been seen as a time to deny ourselves of something to heighten our spiritual awareness, to focus our minds in such a way as to see ourselves and our spiritual condition with spiritual 20/20 vision.
I know how much I have “gained” from losing 30 lbs., and I wonder if God has even more in store for me to gain by losing some of the baggage that I have allowed to entangle me in my spiritual race.
Jesus turned this whole gaining and losing dynamic on its ear in Mark 8:36 when he said, “What will it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Some things aren’t worth gaining, and others are not worth losing. Let’s make sure in this season we get it right!
Look unto Jesus!