The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds Christians that they are surrounded by a great “cloud of witnesses.” (NRSV) That “cloud” has continued to grow in size since then. In this monthly column we will be thinking about some of the people and events, over the past 2000 years, that have helped make up this “cloud.” People and events that have helped build the community of the Christian Church as it exists today.
Something quite remarkable happened in the middle of what we now call the first century AD. A small – but growing – sect of Judaism, originally centred on Jerusalem, began to declare that a Jewish preacher and worker of miracles, named Jesus, who had been condemned by…
