“A CLOUD OF
WITNESSES”
[A sermon at the start of the 2004
Olympics”]
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A sermon preached at Readings: Hebrews
11:29-12:2, Luke 12:49-56 |
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of
witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles,
and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1)
We don’t know when or where the Letter to the Hebrews was
written –
it was evidently sent to a persecuted Gentile
Christian congregation –
quite possibly in Rome, maybe around 60-70 AD though maybe a bit later.
The
passage we read is the set lectionary epistle for the day –
and is nothing if not topical in Olympic week.
The
unknown writer was evidently familiar with athletic competition –
if not with the ancient
Olympics then with similar events.
The
Olympics were alive and well throughout the New Testament period.
There were normally three running races contested -
the stadion, the dolichos
and the diaulos
(roughly 200m, 400m and long distance).
In AD69 Polites remarkably won all three.
There was also chariot racing –
5 years earlier in AD64 the Emperor Nero himself
won various races including the 10 horse chariot race.
It
is maybe fanciful to imagine
our author had ever attended the Olympics as such,
but he was clearly aware of what went on at such events –
and he uses the imagery of the games
when he encourages his readers in the Christian life –
“let us throw off
everything that hinders...
and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Heb 12:1).
Athletes
at the ancient games quite literally threw off everything that hindered –
they ran naked.
If our modern Olympic Games
are sartorially a little more modest than their ancient equivalents,
the image still works today.
Imagine
the start of the Olympic Marathon in a few days time –
everyone lined up for the start.
Imagine a guy turning up for the race dressed in a coat and boots,
with an umbrella and a haversack with map and a paperback book
along with his lunchtime sandwiches.
Someone asks him what he is doing –
Why, he says, I’m running the Marathon –
it’s a long way, the weather is changeable, I might get hungry –
I’m going prepared for every eventuality.
We say –
Don’t you realise you’ll never win the race weighed down like that?
So
the writer of Hebrews says of the spiritual journey -
This
is not a stroll to the beach,
it is a striving after the goal of Christ and his Kingdom –
it is giving your all as you strive
for the love and joy and peace and justice of Christ and his Kingdom.
And that demands the same focus and commitment
shown by an Olympic athlete on the day of the big race.
We might reflect on that as we watch the athletes in the coming fortnight:
Thinking about our prayers, our Bible study, our wrestling with the
truth,
our spiritual training programme.
“At the 1968 Olympics,
an hour after the marathon's winner crossed the finish line,
Tanzania's John Stephen Akhwari limped across the
finish line,
injured in a fall early in the race.
Asked why he didn't quit, he said,
"My country did not send me 7,000 miles to start this race.
My country sent me to finish."”
Craig Brian Larson, “Strong to the Finish” http://www.store.yahoo.com/pttranscripts/larcraigbria.html
“Let
us run the race with perseverance”, says Hebrews.
Nothing less than sharing in Christ’s victory over sin and evil and death will
do.
However hard the race may be.
In
the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Britain's Derek Redmond
was running in the 400-meter semi-finals.
About 100 meters into the race, he collapsed with a torn hamstring.
Medics
rushed out to hep him,
but Redmond waved them aside, struggled to his feet,
and began crawling, hopping in a desperate effort to finish the race.
Up ahead the race had already been won –
but then the crowd saw what was happening behind,
and they begin to cheer this man still hobbling on
half way around the track.
Suddenly
a big guy jumps out of the stands,
avoids a security guard, runs to Redmond's side, and embraces him.
It is Jim Redmond, the athlete's father.
Father’s
arm around his son's waist, son’s arm around his dad's shoulders,
they continue down the track until, finally, arm in arm,
they cross the finish line to the cheers of the crowd.
If
that's the way an earthly father responds
to his son who is determined to finish the race,
how much more does God, our heavenly Father,
run to the side of his son or daughter to aid us?
[Based
on an article in "The Christian Reader" May/June 1988, by Craig Brian
Larson,
"Strong to the Finish," Preaching Today, Tape No. 155.]
So
the author of Hebrews encourages us to run life’s race –
a race in which God is our aim and also our strength.
And
as he imagines the race in the stadium,
so he sees too in his mind’s eye, the amphitheatre, the spectators.
Let us run with perseverance the race
marked out for us, he says,
“since we are surrounded by such a great
cloud of witnesses”
And the writer of Hebrews envisages this amazing
crowd–
He lists some of them up there in the stands -
Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets,
those who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice,
and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions –
and
so he goes on.
This
is the cloud of witnesses gathered to see us race!
And
that word “witness” has a rich depth of meaning –
A
witness is of course someone who witnesses,
watches the event, the action.
But the witness is also someone who witnesses
in the sense of speaking, proclaiming,
someone in the witness box, witnessing to the truth.
Indeed in Greek the word witness and martyr are the same –
thus are those who witnesses the wonder of Christ
prepared to witness, even unto death.
So
we are surrounded in the race of life not by arm chair pundits –
but by those who have run the race before us,
who not only witness what we do, but witness in their lives to the Lord.
What
a crowd! –
and you and I - if we would look about,
yes we too might see Rahab and Gideon and co –
Our writer is concerned here with those of Faith in the Old Testament –
but we might see also in the stands those of the New Testament also –
Today
is 15 August,
the day when our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers
celebrate the assumption into heaven
of the body of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
That is perhaps a story which most Protestants would see
as poetically powerful rather than literally true –
but Catholic or Protestant
we might all look amongst the great cloud of witnesses
and see there in the crowd Mary the mother of our Lord there–
Mary who gave her life to be used by God in his saving work,
at one with us as we too struggle
to make God’s Word known in our age.
Mary
& James & John & Peter & Andrew & more –
all part of the cloud of witnesses –
names as familiar to us as to the writer of Hebrews.
But
perhaps as we look around, we spot others in the stands
not known to our writer – look there -
do you not see
Francis and Dominic,
Luther and Wesley,
Bonhoeffer and Mother Teresa,
Romero and Martin Luther King….
And so we could go on.
Of
course each competitor at the games is especially cheered on
by those near and dear to them –
parents and friends specially cheering for the one close to them –
and so our stadium contains the saints we have known.
Here
today we remember especially members of our own local Church family.
This week in this Church we prepare for the funeral of Joan Underhill,
member of this Church and congregation, now gone to glory,
Joan joining that great cloud of witnesses from this Church
who surround us in our earthly race.
We remember with thanks all those who have gone before us in this place.
I
have been here but two years,
but already I can list such a list of those from this place
who have joined the saints above in that time –
I think of Muriel Dando, May Adams, Ann Caddick, Bill Trevleaven,
Rene Flint, John Lawson, Dudley Jackman, Jim Potter,
Ivy Mercer,
Elsie Brooks and now Joan Underhill –
members of this Church and congregation –
and many of you will add many more names -
all part of the great cloud of witnesses
who do not merely cheer us on, they share with us,
are at one with us –
In
the Methodist Recorder this week there is an obituary for Rev Ronald Corner –
not known I think to many of us here,
but many of you know Martin and Kath, his son and daughter in law.
Whenever I read ministerial
obituaries,
my mind goes to that most moving point in the Annual Methodist Conference
when we remember ministers and deacons who have died.
Their relatives and friends file into the Conference
and pack the public galleries,
before the names of those who have died in the previous 12 months are read
out.
I know there are those here who will remember well
attending one of those services and giving thanks for the life of your loved
one.
And in that service we always thunder out the Wesley
hymn
(seldom sung elsewhere – though we did sing it at John Lawson’s funeral) -
Come, let us join our friends above
That have obtained the prize…..
Ten thousand to their
endless home
This solemn moment fly;
And we are to the margin come,
And we expect to die;
Ev'n now by faith we join our
hands
With those that went before,
And greet the blood-besprinkled bands
On the eternal shore.
[Charles
Wesley]
But
it is not just at such a special service –
whenever we gather in the Lord’s name
we are gathering with that great cloud of witnesses.
It
has been said that there is no such thing as a small Church congregation –
For even at the smallest village chapel,
still there is gathered a great cloud of witnesses at every tiny service.
So
in a few moments we will gather at the Lord’s table
And
how many will there be at the rail with us?
As
you step forward perhaps you may feel and know their presence -
As you
kneel,
perhaps you may catch a glimpse of the army of the Lord
encamped around and above you.
As we return strengthened
for the spiritual race,
may we hear the cheers and songs of the saints echoing in ears!
Therefore, to conclude with the words of our text,
since we are surrounded by such a great cloud
of witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles,
and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
(Hebrews 12:1)