In the Name of
Jesus. Amen.
In
1911 a young man, Roland Bainton entered Yale Divinity School. He would never leave it, first a student,
then professor, then church historian of international reputation. He wrote the definitive biography of Martin
Luther, Here I Stand. He was in his mid 80’s when I arrived.
Every
year, first week of classes, we gathered in the dining room, and Roland Bainton
told us stories of the portraits that hung all the way round, starting with
Jonathon Edwards and rehearsing the history of Yale through its deans, the
other portraits, and their part in the spiritual and political history of the
nation.
He
would end with the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Therefore, since we are surrounded
by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with perseverance the race that is
set before us, looking to Jesus, who
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and
is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
So
in the days to come, glad days, weary days, occasionally heavy-laden, we ate
our breakfast, lunch and dinner, in communion with a cloud of witnesses who had
faced glad days, weary days, heavy-laden, who ran with perseverance the race
that was set before them, and now looked down from their place on the wall, to
urge us to do the same.
We,
too, are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses.
Bainton had an hour for his sermon, and I don’t. So my tour of our witnesses is in three
parts, today Philip and James, Mark and Matthew. August 4th to finish.
