You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. Heb 12:22 NLT
What a delight it is, for so many of us, to be here this season, surrounded by the witnesses of so many of our loved ones who may have left us & are amongst the cloud of witnesses.Welcome! Welcome to a cloud of witnesses!
I love & delight spending time in watching the different shapes of clouds when I am under an open sky. Have you pondered the clouds while outdoors, maybe in your backyard, or at the park—or at the beach, or in the mountains?
I have seen the stratus clouds, those low-level clouds, down-to-earth. I have seen the lovely alto-type clouds—mid-level clouds often billowing into shapes of fantasy and illusion. I have strained to see the cirrus clouds—high-level clouds, lofty and high and wispy.
Each type has its value, sometimes shading a hot summer day, sometimes forecasting a weather pattern, sometimes pouring tremendous rain upon a needy earth. As you may know, clouds form when water vapor coalesces around a tiny dust particle in the air. Clouds actually need small dust particles to form. Every cloud contains some sort of condensed vapor around a small piece of dust. I often wondered how my brother who is now in the cloud of witnesses up there, would look at a particular cloud & know its going to rain with thunder. He would say thats a thunder cloud. I used to ask him how you know,he would just smile & moments later it would really rain.
Then, they take on fantastic shapes. Sometimes those billowing clouds provide creative inspiration. They look like stuffed animals and dreams. But sometimes, indeed, they look dangerous and foreboding to us.
The entire eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews has been summarizing the various heroes of faith, and what those particular biblical characters have endured in their faith. It is at the conclusion of that summary that the Book of Hebrews calls this community a “cloud of witnesses.”
Witnesses are just as various as the clouds in the sky.
Some of us are light and airy, like high-level clouds. Some of us are dark and stormy, maybe brooding. Some of us provide nourishment with our water, raining blessing down upon others during needy times. But some of us have the potential to do great damage with our storms. Some of us are down-to-earth, and some of us are high and lofty.
But every one of us starts as a particle of dust. Stardust, maybe. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It is water that turns us into a cloud. It is this water of the word of God that we are all baptized into Jesus that turns us into a cloud of witnesses.
Nevertheless, whatever our shape or size or altitude, each of us has a witness. We are witnesses to something. We witness faith, for sure. We believe in something that is not always seen, maybe like water in the air is not always seen, but is always there.
“Faith,” said Hebrews (11:1) “is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.” Exactly! There is always water in the air, but that water does not take shape unless there are clouds giving witness to that water! The shape of our clouds is the way our faith gives shape to hope.
You are I are surrounded by witnesses this morning, people in the Bible, and people around us, who have given shape to faith. The shapes around us are not all the same shape, or even the same substance. But each of the shapes around you and me are ways that fellow saints have met the challenges of daily life. The spiritual & natural parents, this morning are surrounding as a cloud of witness. They are here to pass on their particular “witness” to those around. Blessings to all these shapes of clouds!
We are, each of us, a witness to Jesus. We are here because we have seen Jesus somewhere, or maybe we WANT to see Jesus somewhere. The people around us today are those who want to see Jesus: Jesus, whom the Bible calls the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.
Sin, says the Epistle to the Hebrews, is whatever gets in our way of that vision of Jesus. Sin is any illusion, that gets in the way of seeing Jesus. Sometimes clouds can be illusions that get in the way. But sometimes (oh, far more often), they are inspiration for us. They nourish us with living water!
And so the Epistle to the Hebrews urges us: “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, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:1-2).”
What do you see in the clouds this morning? I see witness. I see the lovely shapes and sizes of faith, some billowing and beautiful, and some wispy and fragile, but still beautiful—all of us giving shape to faith and following Jesus, our pioneer, our perfecter, our Lord.
Sol. Joan Mendonca