Angels Sing in the Wind

Sermon Hebrews 11:1-3; 8-10; 39-12:3 February 16, 2020

Angels Sing in the Wind

‘Sometimes angels sing to you in the wind, all you have to do is listen.’ 

This was the quote written on a tag attached to a homemade silver angel. It was a gift given to me, to us, before we left on our voyage. It was a precious gift given by a woman of wisdom; a woman who knows the hearts of people; a woman who knows the power of words and the power of the mystery of God, a woman who is near and dear to me, close to my heart. 

She shared this gift in the hopes it would be a reminder for me to sit still with God as we crossed the waters. 

She shared it with me in the hopes that I would seek to recognize the sound of God around me; 

that I would hear God’s voice and listen for all God has for me.

The letter to the Hebrews draws our attention to the cloud of witnesses, 

the ancient faith pillars that gather around the current community of faith. 

They are there as a testimony of faith. 

They are there as a witness to what has gone before so we can hear their stories. 

They are there with voices to be heard. 

They are there with wisdom to share. 

They are there whistling in the wind. 

All we have to do is listen.

All of the persons mentioned in the eleventh chapter demonstrate the power of God living the endurance of faith. They are the forerunners to our faith. They are the testimony to which we receive encouragement and courage to continue to live lives of faith, to endure the hardships that come our way, and to become the pillars of faith for future generations.

In this letter the connection of the past is brought forward into the present so it will continue into the future.

Why? Why does the past matter? 

Who cares about the way things were done? 

What difference do these old geezers make to what’s happening around us today?

In a world today where we receive over six thousand messages a day, the information line of what’s relevant is blurred. We can type into google search, or ask Alexa, or speak to Echo our questions and in return we get perfect and precise answers. Scripture loses its place in the information highway. Its wisdom as a guide for life is lost since it is not included in the search data available to google, or amazon for fear of offending those who do not practice a life of faith. If you don’t believe me do a search for religious emojis, they don’t exist or they are hard to find. We have done a lot to remove religion from our overall way of living.

With these marvelous technologies, a sense of value of those who have gone before fades into oblivion. It becomes the end of words, the end of time, it is chaos. 

Yeats wrote a poem called ‘the Second Coming’ in 1919-the year after the end of WWI. 

He felt the world of civil communication was coming to an end. 

He felt the modern world of that time had come to a crisis where speaking and hearing had been lost. 

He was not only living the time of the crisis of WWI but also the horror of the Bolshevik Revolution and the troubles of Ireland. 

It seems that all times of history have been the end of times. 

Because here we are in 2020 and it seems nothing has changed. 

It still feels like the end times, the end of words, the time of chaos.

And that’s why turning to the past is important.

The past reveals several things for us. 

It reveals the constant rebellion, resistance, and retaliation of humanity with one another. Wars have always been fought over land and bread. 

There has never been a time of peace. 

In a biblical sense we have always been living out the eschatological end times. 

Every generation has looked to the current times and wondered if this was the time of the return of Christ and prayed the words, ‘come Lord Jesus, come.’ 

We have the opportunity to look to our past with a choice of lenses. 

We could take the time to look to the past as a time of tragedy. A time where all we witnessed was turmoil, chaos, torture, and death. 

Or we could also look to that time as a time of triumph, resilience, endurance, strength, courage, and overcoming, even in the face of death.

The letter to the Hebrews offers the early Christians a sense of strength in community through the stories of faith of their ancestors. 

Abraham was not only a man of faith but also a man whom God entrusted the                        future of all generations. 

To Abraham was promised a nation; a community  of people of faith. 

God trusted that Abraham would have the faith, the hope, to carry the                             knowledge of God into eternity. 

The community of God was born in Abraham’s obedience to follow God into a place of uncertainty. 

Our salvation history is drawn from those who chose to follow a God they didn’t know before into a place they didn’t know and to be confident with the presence of God who had just been revealed. 

If they could respond in faith like that, then maybe we can too.

That’s why we look back.

Not to pine away at what we don’t have. 

But we look back to witness what was there to give us courage to go forward. 

Faith is more than hope in this letter. 

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 

Faith is tenacious, it is not coerced, it is courageous, it is salvific, it is life.

From these pillars described for us in chapter eleven we have a profile of what a forefather looks and acts like. We have an example and a standard to use for ourselves and to teach our children.

How many of us have entered our DNA into the 23 and Me or Ancestry.com for                      analysis? Why have we done that? Because we want to learn a little bit about                        ourselves through the stories of our family history. We have a sense that we will                    discover things that will help us understand who we are. We have an idea that                      this organization of our ancestors into a data program will help to tell the story to                    our children so they will be encouraged and excited to know that these people                        are part of their story. It’s exciting to watch people interested in the family stories                    that made a difference.

In the church we keep the stories of those who have gone before us in our church minutes, in our church history, in our church plaques, in our photo archives, and memorials. 

We won’t know who we are if we don’t keep and tell their stories year after year. 

We are still here because of them. We hope the next generation will be here because of us.

Let’s pause for a moment and think of the names of people who have been part of this congregation over the past generations. 

Who were they? 

How do we remember them? 

What makes us smile when we think of them. 

What makes us laugh? 

What makes us cringe? 

And what makes us want to be like them? 

They are the Abrahams and Sarahs of our past. 

You are the Abrahams and Sarahs of our future. 

How will your faith story play out?

I’ll share with you what I wrote about how the people of the past influenced me on our voyage:

Today, December 23, we are in safe harbor. Choosing once again to listen to the wisdom of the voices in the wind. I'm not sure if the voices were the angels or the voices of the saints who have gone before us. But the wisdom was there whistling through the wind sometimes loud and shouting and sometimes subtle and quiet. I had the comfort every night on my watch of watching the constellation Orion rise and maintain our stern. And our bow was guided boldly by the planet Jupiter. I spoke to my dad every night as I looked at Orion and asked him to do his best to keep us safe. I often heard (very often) Tony's (my step-dad) words of safety as we traveled. Tony was so interested in every part of our planning of our trip. Tony questioned every detail, making sure we knew what decision we were making was a sound one. He pulled out the Atlas often going over our route and making recommendations. Tony cheered us on in his own special way by worrying about us. Even in his last months of life he reminded us to be safe as we made the Atlantic crossing.
​We miss him, my dad, Mike's mom, and all our precious family and friends who have gone before us. Perhaps, that's why we heard angels and saints singing to us in the wind guiding us to our safe haven.

We are so glad we listened to them.
We are much better because of them. 

Our community of faith is a powerful place full of amazing saints. 

Let’s honor them today as we sing and pray. 

Let’s go from here today and choose to look to the future with the strength and courage of the past. 

Let us sit still with God. 

Let us seek to recognize the sound of God around us. 

Let us hear God’s voice and listen for all God has for us.

Let us look to Jesus as our perfecter of our faith and run the race set before us. 

For we, dear friends, are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses! 

Amen.

Resources: Hebrews-Fred Craddock- NIB Abingdon Press Volume X;