The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel
Ephphatha Parish of the Deaf
Episcopal Diocese of Central NY
This is the Sunday after All Saints' Day, which was November 1. Because of the pressures of school and work, many churches celebrate All Saints' Day today.
All Saints' Day is many things. First, it is the day that the church celebrates the lives and ministries of ordinary Christians like you and me...the ones that do not have "saint" before their names, but who try hard to live the life that Jesus showed us how to live, loving God above everything else, and loving and serving God in our neighbors, co-workers, friends, and the people we meet on the street or at the bowling alley. If you read the letters of St. Paul in your Bible, you will find that he often refers to ordinary church members as "saints." He begins some of his letters, or epistles, with a phrase like: To the saints in the church in Ephesus (or some other town).
Then, All Saints' Day is the day that people used to think that the saints were allowed to return to earth once each year. That idea has given rise to Hallowe'en. Hallow means holy or blessed, and e'en is an old
abbreviation for evening. The night before All Saints' Day, the story goes, you might meet a saint walking down the street! And so the custom rose of dressing like the saints on the
evening before All Saints' Day. Later on, any costume was used, not just the costumes of a saint; some church schools still use saints' costumes for their Hallowe'en celebrations.
All Saints' Day is also the celebration of our belief in the Communion of Saints. We say in the Creeds that we believe in the Communion of Saints, but probably most of us don't think much about what it means. The doctrine or teaching of the Communion of Saints is one of the greatest things about Christianity. I am going to talk about this a little now, just to remind us all about what it means.
We all know that because we are all sinners, we do not deserve to go to heaven, or live with God after we leave this earth. And most of us remember that Jesus' death on the cross took away our sins, and made it possible for us to avoid the punishment for sin that is called Hell, and made it possible for us to enter heaven and live in God's Kingdom. The souls of those who have gone on to Heaven do not die. Their bodies, of course, die, and will be replaced in Heaven with a new, perfect and holy body that they will wear for all eternity. What this means for us is that the people who have died in the faith, and who now live in Heaven, are still alive. Their old bodies have been buried and go back to the earth, but they have new, glorious bodies, and they still remember us; they still care about us; and they still help us in whatever ways they can. We, of course, remember them, and still can express our love for them. Some of us make memorial gifts to a church or other charity or institution in the names of family members or friends who have gone on before. Many of us have a sense of the closeness of the spirit of someone who has gone home to heaven; we feel strongly that our mom or brother or friend is still nearby, telling us what to do, and helping us over the hard parts of life. This is one of the great comforts of believing in the Communion of Saints: the knowledge that death does not separate us from those we love who are no longer here on earth. That knowledge also gives us hope. We know that we are not ever alone, that, as the Letter to the Hebrews and the old, familiar hymn say, we are surrounded by clouds of witnesses...the saints...who can witness to us about the goodness and glory of God, and give us strength to go on when it feels like we cannot manage any more by ourselves. It also means that when our turn comes to leave this life and go on to the next, we will be reunited with those we loved and cared about on earth.
And so, you see, All Saints' Day is our own very special celebration, our own very special feast day. It is the day that the church celebrates the ordinary person who tries to live as Jesus taught, and love God and love others. And it is the day that we can celebrate our hope for the future, our faith in God's love that will one day reunite us with those who have gone before us, and remember with thankful hearts that no matter how terrible things seem for us right now in this life...in jail, in war, in a concentration camp, while we suffer in a hospital, or when everybody's mad at us...we have strong friends and relatives who have gone on to the next life gathered around us, helping, giving us strength and hope to deal with the hard things in our own lives. We know that we are never alone, with God and all his saints there to help us and give us strength for our every need. Amen.
