Hebrews 11:39-12:2
Joining the Cloud – Running the Race
James Sledge November
13, 2022
Cloud of Witnesses Mike Moyers |
There were no lifeguards at this beach, and a large crowd gathered at the water’s edge, horrified but not knowing what to do. Someone wondered if they might be able to throw a rope out to them and pull them in, but who brings a rope with them to the beach? Besides, they were so far out.
Then someone got the idea to create their own line to those caught in the rip tide. They could form a human chain to pull the people back in. The crowd on the beach, most of them strangers to one another, began to link arms and move out toward the trapped people who were about a hundred yards from the shore. Eighty people joined together, stretching out to those children and would be rescuers who had been caught in the tide. And one by one they pulled every one of them to safety.
I think something similar is going on in the sermon that is the book of Hebrews. It speaks of a great cloud of witnesses that went before us, and over the recent weeks, you been hearing from church members about their witnesses, the ones who mentored them or guided them in some way in their faith journey. It strikes me that the witnesses who went before us, who founded this church, who introduced us to the faith, who taught us important faith lessons, form a kind of human chain that helps pull us forward on our walks of faith.