The quay was awash with them. Lithe and impressive-looking people, smiling and warmly gabbling in different tongues, and sporting silver medals around their necks. These were the athletes who the previous day had completed the Sydney marathon, and were now proudly wearing their spoils of war, including a special-edition shirt with the word ‘Finisher’ emblazoned across the back.

Which made me wonder why the Apostle Paul was awarded his shirt before crossing the line. In his final letter he famously said: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” And yet he just had said, “My departure is near”, meaning that he was still running and not yet over the line. (Not to mention the really obvious point, that he is writing the letter, and therefore still very much alive.) So why the past tense: “I have finished the race”’?

There comes a point in the Christian life where the end can be assumed. This is not to counsel presumption nor complacency, but to credit the sovereignty of God, who preserves his persevering sons and daughters in the race. He will not let them fall at the end. He will hold them in his strong promises, and bring them safely over the line. And so when I reach my days of frailty, and even perhaps lapse into some incoherent speech, yet even then amidst the days of likely dementia, the truth will stand: “I have finished the race”.