I am writing this on Friday, October 31…aka Halloween. Over the years it has been called Samhain, after a Celtic autumn festival, and All Hallows’ Eve, the day before All Saints’ Day. Church history records that we have our Catholic brothers and sisters to thank for All Saints’ Day. Pope Gregory III is credited with establishing November 1 as a day for the living to honor and remember those who have died.

Today I will make sure we have plenty of treats to give out to the many children who live in our neighborhood. I will sit in our driveway next to a firepit ready to greet the ghosts, Marvel characters, monsters, Swifties, Wednesday’s, animals, pirates, K-pops, witches, and Minecraft characters that will pass through in all their ghoulish, cute, creative, and excited grandeur. It’s still great to be a kid on Halloween.

Though they are attached in heritage and well-entrenched in fall traditions, All Hallows’ Eve and All Saints’ Day are very different in the life of the church. In the decades I served in congregational appointments, I always enjoyed the Trunk or Treats that brought smiling parents and energetic children to the church for candy, games, and celebratory fun. Then that first Sunday in November we went through the powerful rituals of All Saints’ Day, celebrating in a deep and reverent way the lives of those who had died in our church and personal families in the last year.

As a pastor, All Saints’ Sunday is very meaningful. So many emotions fill the service…a mixture of sadness, grief, and longing blended with gratitude, assurance, and the promises of our faith. With each name read, each candle lit, each toll of a bell or chime an individual made in the image of God, whose life impacted ours and whose loss is still raw and not fully realized, is remembered and revered.

All Saints’ Day is a time to remember the many sets of shoulders on whom we stand and the many lives that have touched ours over our years. Who might you remember this weekend that made either a momentary or monumental impression on your life? Who died long ago that you wish you could talk to today? Who is a person that God used to demonstrate a deeply sincere and powerful example of unconditional love? Who is a person you lost that no measure of time will ever cure your grief?

All Saints’ is a day to remember and reclaim the gift of Eternal Life that Resurrection gives us, and those we have lost, victory over death. Paul offers a rebuke of death and in 1 Corinthians 15:54-57, “When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (NRSV)

Paul is referencing Hosea 13:14, “O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your destruction? Compassion is hidden from my eyes.” (NRSV) Eugene Peterson paraphrases this passage in The Message, “Who is afraid of you, Death? Who cares about your threats, Tomb? In the end I’m abolishing regret, banishing sorrow…”.

Grief is normal. Grief hits each person differently. Grief is a journey…but one in which Christ walks along side us. We are not alone. As people of faith we must not fall into sorrow for that is a place where Christ and the cross have been forgotten. Sorrow is Sheol. Sorrow is the grave of hope. In Jesus, we can escape this pit and rise to remember that we are blessed beyond measure in this life and in the life to come.

May this weekend be filled with the joy of young life in our children. May we also smile, even ever so slightly, as we remember and cherish the lives of those we love who now reside with God in heaven.

Grace abounds!

 

Rev. Dr. David Weatherly
President/CEO