I has the privilege if preaching at the Auckland diocesan girls school this morning for their Founder's day and the transferred feast of All Saints. It's quite a nice way of thinking of the Great Cloud of Witnesses. Those who set up the school, who established traditions and took a stand for something in the Mission of God and those with whom we are still surrounded (the Old Girls) inspire still our engagement in God's mission.
We can fall in to the trap (I think) of seeing those traditions and expectations as things we have to live up to. To emulate the lives of others. For me Jesus' words to us in the Beatitudes are not His expectations of us but His hopes for all of us, His saints, to live lives in keeping with those around and before us in the Mission of God. Not attempting to live the life of another but to live out who we are in the time and place we find ourselves. To make a stand for the glory if God.
