Cloud of Witnesses

Cloud of Witnesses
Today is All Saint’s Day…All Saints is a day of remembrance for the saints, with the New Testament meaning of all Christian people of every time and place. We celebrate the communion of the saints as we remember the dead, both of the church universal and of our congregation. John Wesley, who was the founder of the Methodist movement, noted in his journals that All Saints was one of his favorite days in the Church of England, but for some reason he didn’t include it in the calendar that he provided to Methodists in North America. It has been in more recent times that the United Methodist Church has reclaimed this day not to be like any other denomination, but to reclaim the belief that John Wesley also held that we are a part of the great cloud of witnesses to Jesus Christ who makes us saints through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Did you know that you are a witness to Jesus Christ? Now, some of you may be thinking that you can’t possibly be a witness to Jesus Christ…You weren’t there when he lived and died…A show of hands of who was there?? And yet, we are all witnesses to Jesus Christ…We are all witness to the work that God does in the world…Where have you seen God active in your lives? (Wait for answers)…You are part of the cloud of witnesses! We are all a part of the cloud of witnesses!
Today we remember those who have died and who have joined in the communion of saints…These people who are part of the greater cloud of witnesses…A cloud that contains not only us, but all those who have lived and died and are witnesses to Jesus Christ.
Of those who have influenced you in your faith journey in your life, what was it about them that helped to influence you? Maybe it was something that they did…Maybe it was something that they said…Maybe it was both…Maybe it was something that they didn’t do or didn’t say…Turn to the person who is sitting closest to you and tell them about the person that you consider a saint and what it was about them that made them a saint…
Those people that have been influential along our faith journey are important for so many reasons…They taught us many lessons along the way…Lessons about life, lessons about faith, and lessons about how to apply the two together…
The thing about lessons is they’re not supposed to remain stagnant…Not only are we supposed to apply the lessons that we have been taught, but the lessons that we were taught are supposed to be passed on…Have you done that? That’s part of what it means to be a part of the cloud of witnesses…To witnesses to the acts of God in the world by sharing the lessons that have been given to us…
As Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus, he is writing to encourage them. He’s not writing to encourage a small group of people, but he’s writing to encourage the whole congregation…The whole congregation is the cloud of witnesses…Paul doesn’t say that Sunday school teachers heard the Word of God and were marked by the Holy Spirit…Paul doesn’t say that those who are in charge of committees heard the Word of God and were marked by the Holy Spirit…Paul doesn’t say that those who attend Bible study heard the Word of God and are marked by the Holy Spirit…Although all those people have heard the Word of God and are marked by the Holy Spirit…Paul says that you heard the Word of God and are marked by the Holy Spirit…You are a part of the cloud of witnesses…
Those saints that we remember today, they have taught us some wonderful and amazing things…There are those saints like Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Catherine, Paul who have helped in establishing the Christian tradition and sharing the message of the Gospel to the world…There are those saints like Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, John Paul II who have continued to share the Gospel in new and different ways to people who hadn’t heard it before! There are those saints that we remember from our own stories that have helped to show us the Christian faith as best as they know it, who have provided opportunities to know God & the love that God has for all of us…Those who have invited us to join the cloud of witnesses…
To be a witness means that you have to do something…You have to witness to God’s grace…If no one had told you about God’s love, would you be here? If no one had offered to bring you to church, would you be here? If no one had welcomed you, would you be here? One of our responsibilities as Christians is to encourage others to join the cloud of witnesses…Just like there are a variety of saints that have gone before us, there are a variety of ways that the invitation happens…It may be through a movie, a class, a song, a friend, an invitation, a letter, a visit…The responsibility to witness to God’s grace is all of our responsibility…We are a cloud of witnesses…