Friends,

I write this on Maundy Thursday, and at the earliest you will read this on Good Friday. If you didn’t go to the Maundy Thursday service this year, then make it a point to go in 364 days at the next one! I love this service so much, and for me, it is when the roller coaster to Easter really gets going.

With all the excitement happening this week I completely neglected the Wednesday noon healing service, which is not uncommon. Generally, we only have three or four people that attend the service, and I rarely get an opportunity to mediate on the scripture, let alone read it all, before the service begins. Considering I find little to no correlation between my sermon preparation and the quality of my sermons, so going into a service blind no longer frightens me. Actually, I find it quite freeing and often notice new things and explore new topics that I would have ignored if I had the time to think about it too much. This Wednesday, I felt like I heard a portion of Paul’s letter to the Hebrews anew, which reads:

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, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.[1]

In that small service, with just the four of us, I was struck by the cloud of witnesses that have been caretakers of the very story that we were preparing to live into. The story of our salvation, culminating of Jesus on the cross and the empty tomb, to the last two thousand years of this story be shared, pondered over, and loved was central to so many lives that came before us, and in that moment manifested in the four of us listening to scripture and offering our prayers. In that moment, we were inheritors of the hope that cloud of witnesses passed down to us, and in a way, they joined us in prayer. We just could not see it immediately, because we were in the midst of that cloud.

If I may, let me indulge an urge to take a metaphor way past it’s intended use: clouds can feel super disappointing when you get up close. Laying down on the grass at the beginning of summer and watching the clouds go by was a favorite pastime of mine as a young child. I was about in the second grade when I got to fly in an airplane for the first time. I knew all about clouds from school, and how they were water vapor getting ready to get turned into rain. While I may have known that in my head, my heart was adamant that flying through them was going to be magical. When the twin engine turboprop commuter plane broke through the lower barrier of the cloud, things got slightly bumpy, water droplets appeared on the window, and after about a minute we were above the cloud, and really did seem magical. Up there the sun was bright, and the clouds appeared to be a giant pillow. I felt compelled to jump out of the plane door to see if I could bounce on the clouds. Fortunately, my head had no problem disappointing my heart and reminded me that clouds were just dark and wet and certainly wouldn’t break my fall. It was magical to see, but as a child it was strangely humbling to see something that looks so magical from far away be so mundane up close.

The true magic of clouds is that they aren’t one thing, but they are made up of countless raindrops that haven’t quite gathered enough mass to fall. A giant floating pillow would have been neat, but the mundane reality of clouds is so much more incredible. Watching my plane cut through the clouds and seeing the rain droplets form on the window was not evidence that the world lacks miracles and magic, but that magic and wonder abound. It is incredible that we live on a planet where water exists in three forms, and that clouds are even a thing. But there I was flying through something so incredibly rare on a cosmic level and that makes life possible on Earth. I was seeing something miraculous, but since it didn’t meet my childhood fantasy of giant floating clouds, I felt disappointed.

The cloud of witnesses that we are part of are not that dissimilar. The physical building that houses our Church is an odd manifestation of that tremendous cloud. If the Christians before us had not passed on their story and faith, there would be no reason for us to make a St. Luke’s. This is a neat idea, but it can be disappointing when you try to fix the leak in the steeple for a decade and continuously get defeated, or when you come face to face with air handlers that need replacing. It can be tragic when you come to this physical manifestation of the great cloud of witnesses, and you do not receive the love you crave. It is even worse, when you realize you were inadvertently part of that failure to show Christ’s love. If you read up on Christian History, it’s more of the same. That great cloud of witnesses that are responsible for us hearing the Gospel today were flawed human being and often advocated for things that we’d find abhorrent today. Almost always, the closer you get to Church the darker and messier it looks. You expect a shining city on a hill, but you get a dark, damp cloud.

It can feel disappointing when those expectations are not met, but just like how those droplets of the window were a sign of something miraculous disguised as something mundane, the messiness of Church gives me hope. It would be easy to be the Church if we always had everything right, and everyone always acted as they should, and loved God and loved their neighbor just as they should, but this is not how humans work, and regardless of our intentions, we are all very flawed humans. When you get inside of the great cloud of witnesses it is dripping wet with our collective desire to serve God and neighbor, and all the failures that have accompanied those desires. It can uncomfortable, but without that cloud life would not be possible. God did not make the Church or this rock we inhabit for perfect creatures, but for us, and when it rains, we know that we have received grace.

Sunday will be interesting. A ton of our regulars are gone for spring break, and we will have a ton of guests that we have not seen in a year, or ever. If you are in town, come help me welcome them into this great cloud of witnesses.

-Nick

[1] Hebrews 12:1-3 NRSV