All Saints’-All Souls’ Sunday, John 6:37-40

Delivered by Pastor Jonathan Linman on November 5, 2023

All Saints’-All Souls’ Sunday is a festival of thanksgiving, remembrance, and celebration, but it also may well put us in touch with our own personal stories of grief. For each name on the walls surrounding us in this room is a person near and dear to one or more of us in this congregation. Each name is a story of life to be celebrated, but also a story of loss, be it a loss in the past year or even decades ago. 

When we remember the saints, even in their absence, they become present to us through our cherished memories of them. This is a bittersweet day as we celebrate the saints, but also continue to feel the empty places created by their departure from us. 

By the same token, remembering those who have been taken from us also puts us in touch with our own mortality, that we will eventually meet the same fate in death as those who have gone before us. The older I become, the more aware I am that my days are numbered.

As we psychically and existentially get close to the reality of our own mortality, we may fear dying alone – as so many actually did during the pandemic – or we may fear that in death we will be forgotten by others. 

Today is a poignant day in so many ways. But as we get in touch with our various griefs and losses, and as we are reminded of our own mortality, we also celebrate and experience in this place the gospel, the good news, as we heard in today’s reading from John, where Jesus reassuringly promises: “And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that [the Father] has given me but raise them up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.” (John 6:39-40) Which is to say, we are all held in God’s blessed memory in Christ, those who have gone before us, and we ourselves. We will not be forgotten. By virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection who leads and paves the way, we will not die alone. We will not be left orphaned.  This is reason to celebrate. Thanks be to God!

In this, we cling to the promise proclaimed in today’s passage from the book of Wisdom, a promise fulfilled in Christ: “But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster and their going from us to be their destruction, but they are at peace.” (Wisdom 3:1-3)

For in Christ, we likewise share in the promise of resurrection. As Paul writes in today’s reading from Romans – listen again to this good news: 

“Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection life his.” (Romans 6:3-5)

And if we are united with Christ, we will also be reunited with all of those others who have likewise died and have been raised with Christ. Thus, there is promise of a grand reunion at the resurrection on the last day when Christ will come again in glory to bring to consummation, to completion, all that he began two millennia ago. 

We have a downpayment on this pledge, this promise, each and every time we gather at this table for this holy meal, which is a foretaste of the feast to come as we gather with Christ in the Trinitarian reality of the Godhead, where we are also mystically seated with all the saints around the heavenly banquet table. 

Here in this place, surrounded by the saints in mystic sweet communion, we die and rise with Christ in the waters of baptism. In this place we are fed by the holy word of God with comforting and reassuring passages as we have heard today. We are nourished by Christ’s very presence known to us in the breaking of bread and in the sharing of the cup, becoming one body with Christ as the church, both the church militant on earth and the church triumphant in the heavenly places. 

Through these means of grace, we know not only Christ’s presence among us, but through Christ and in the power of his Spirit, we also enjoy the vast communion of saints, and have fellowship with all of those who have gone before us, those near and dear to us, and those of every race, language, nation and culture, whom we do not know and yet who are part of the universal communion of saints. 

We eat of the one, Christ Jesus, absent from us, who mysteriously becomes present to us. And in his presence, then all of those who have been taken from us likewise, in Christ, become present, for we are all one in Christ’s embrace. In our mind’s eye, the image of all the saints appears on the horizon as we approach this table of grace and mercy and reunion. Those whom we remember and know, and the vast multitude known by others, but unknown to us. It’s a wondrous mystery. 

And here’s the thing, this vast multitude of those near and dear and those from every nation, language, race, from across time and across the globe, this vast multitude cheers us on. 

Listen to how the author of the letter to the Hebrews proclaims it after concluding a long discourse about the lives and witness of those who have proceeded us in the faith: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith…” (Hebrews 12:1-2a) 

This great cloud of witnesses cheers us on from the stands in the heavenly stadium. And their cheering, in the power of the Spirit, renews our faith, encourages us, energizes us, and spurs us on to continue our earthly pilgrimage in serving our neighbors in love and in our seeking for justice for all people and for all creation, as we proclaim in word and deed the gospel of Christ. 

So, as you come forward to the table today, see in your mind’s eye this vast host, and listen for the voices of this cloud of witnesses, voices known and familiar to you, but also the voices of the multitude unknown to you, but who nonetheless are part of this great company of saints. 

And in such encouragement, your grief of loss embraced by the one who will not forget us or leave us orphaned, and with your faith renewed and strengthened, leave this place to seek the well-being, the shalom, the commonwealth of all people and all of God’s good creation. 

Thanks be to God in Christ Jesus in the power of the Spirit and in communion with all the saints. Amen.