Clouds Without Water

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1 July 2026 · Friday of Trinity 4 (observed) · Jude 1:5–13; Matthew 17:10–18

“These are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots… wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.” (Jude 1:12–13)

In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.

St. Jude won’t let us be comfortable. He reminds us of the one thing we would rather forget: that the Lord “saved the people out of the land of Egypt” and then “afterward destroyed those who did not believe” (Jude 1:5). Saved, and then destroyed. The same people. They walked through the sea on dry ground. They ate the manna. They drank from the rock. And then their bodies fell in the wilderness because they would not believe. The angels who did not keep their place are chained in darkness. Sodom is an example of eternal fire. Cain, Balaam, Korah. No one enjoys reading this list. Jude tells it to us anyway, and he does so on purpose.

Why? Because we are always tempted to think that once we’re in, we’re safe no matter what we do with it. We were baptized. We were brought through our own Red Sea. We have eaten the bread of heaven at this very altar. And so we presume. We let our faith go cold, and we tell ourselves it doesn’t matter, because after all, we’re God’s people.

But Jude says: go ask the wilderness generation how that turned out. Faith can die. A man can become a cloud without water — all the look of a Christian, and not a drop of rain in him. A wandering star — a little light that leads nowhere but into the dark. “O faithless and perverse generation,” (Matt. 17:17) says our Lord in the Gospel, and He isn’t only talking about the scribes. He’s talking about His own disciples, who could not cast the demon out of the boy. He’s talking about you and me.

Look at them. A man brings his son, a boy who falls into the fire and into the water, and the disciples can do nothing. They had been given the authority. They failed anyway, because of their little faith. And there stands the father, with a child no one can heal. That is every one of us before God. We can’t heal what afflicts us. We can’t cast out the old Adam. We can’t manufacture the faith that saves. If your salvation hung on the strength of your grip on Christ, you would let go and fall like a wandering star, and so would I.

But listen to what the father in our Gospel prays. He doesn’t boast about his faith. He says, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24) And Jesus does not turn him away for praying such a poor, divided, half-believing prayer. He says, “Bring him here to Me” (Matt. 17:17), and He heals the boy that very hour. There is the whole Gospel in one scene. The same Lord who destroyed the unbelieving in the wilderness has come down the mountain, down from His glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, into the muck of our faithless world — to a demon-tormented boy, to a father who can barely believe — and He is faithful. Where the disciples fail, Jesus is able. Where your faith is little, His faithfulness is whole.

And where is He going as He comes down that mountain? He has just told them. Elijah came, and they did to him whatever they pleased; they put John the Baptist’s head on a platter. “So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands.” (Matt. 17:12) He is going to Jerusalem. He is going to the cross. He will be handed over to a faithless and perverse generation, and He will not save Himself. He will be cut down like that fruitless tree, in the place of you who were dead in your trespasses, so that you might live. He takes the blackness of darkness that was reserved for wandering stars, and He drinks it down on the cross, for you.

So hear this, you who are afraid your faith is too small, you who lie awake wondering whether you’ve become a cloud without water. That very fear is the Holy Spirit still at work in you. The wilderness generation did not lie awake worrying that they had fallen away; they were sure of themselves. The man who cries “help my unbelief” is not the apostate. He is the one Jesus heals. Your salvation does not hang on the strength of your faith but on the faithfulness of your Savior, and Jude tells you so himself: He is “able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory.” (Jude 1:24) He keeps you. Not you, Him.

And He keeps you right here. He drowned the old Adam in your Baptism and raised up a new man who will not finally fall. He speaks through His called servant, I forgive you all your sins, and casts the demon of your unbelief out once again. He lays His own faithful body and blood on your faithless tongue and says, this is for you. So come, and bring your unbelief with you. Bring him here to Me, He says. Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guards your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie · St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School — Sherman Center, Random Lake, Wisconsin

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