The Hope of the Saints

By now I suspect y'all are accustomed to me writing about this little church on every All Saints Day.  Each year when this solemn feast roles around I always think of All Saints Episcopal Church in Norton, VA, which was the wonderful little community that baptized, confirmed, and ordained me.  It was at All Saints, surrounded by all the saints, that I first fell in love with Jesus and his Church. Without saints like Leola Wooten, Frances Herndon, who have gone on to glory, and those still with us like Mike Donathan, and The Rev. Fran McCoy, I would not be writing this blog today because I likely would not even be a priest. There is a connection to that little church that I will always have, especially at this time of year.

In fact, that is really what All Saints Day is about:  connection.  The celebrations we all experienced in churches on Sunday invited each of us to conjur up images of those who have come before us—parents, grandparents, priests, teachers, friends, and loved ones—those whose faithfulness paved the way for us and brought us to this moment.  It is a wonderful multitude, a great cloud of witnesses, who fought and toiled and lived and died for the God they loved and knew and passed on that love and knowledge to us.  On Thursday, November 1 (the actual day of All Saints) we prayed for all those who have died in our church in the past year at our annual All Saints Evensong.  The following evening our collective hearts were heavy with the news of the death of our church's matriarch and longest-tenured member.  So you can imagine how on Sunday it felt as though the saints were closer to us than on any other day.  Truly, brothers and sisters, they were there, and for that I could not help but say, "Thanks be to God!" for their lives, their faith, and their hope that they have passed on to us. 

The hope of the saints is not some flimsy, cheap grace that is meant to just help us feel better, but it is an everlasting hope in a promise that God first established through the prophets of old and gave full expression in Jesus.  It is the hope for the victory of God, who will wipe away every tear (says Isaiah), who will liberate all captive peoples, and who will raise even the dead to life everlasting.  On Sunday we heard the familiar story of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead, an act that  reminds us of that great hope and the power of God to transform unspeakable grief into overwhelming joy, as Mary & Martha’s pain over the death of their brother is transformed into jubilation, signifying God’s power even over death itself.  Where is thy sting, O death?  It ain't here!  Not in Bethany of Galilee, not in Asheboro of North Carolina, and not in any place where the children of God gather!  For through the power of God all of the saints have triumphed over fear and death.

One thing I love about this story is the hope that Mary shows even before her brother is raised.  She says to Jesus that she knows Lazarus will be raised on the Day of Resurrection, a hope shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, alike.  But Jesus does not let her simply rest on this hope for the future, instead he beckons Lazarus out of his grave to show that the power of God can make the future to break through even into the present. Thus, hope is not something Mary and Martha need to hold on to for the future alone, but it is there in that moment as their brother is raised.  In the same way All Saints Day offers us hope not only for a future where God’s love and light will destroy the powers of darkness and we will see our loved ones again, but also hope that victory is ours even now in the present moment, that God triumphs over the regular forces of darkness that we encounter on a daily basis:  racism, economic injustice, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia & transphobia, and every other evil that plagues our world.  This is not just some far-off hope, but it is for all of us now.  The great multitude of saints is uncountable because it not only includes those ancestors who have gone before, but it includes us as well, regular, everyday, imperfect saints of God, for whom God's power breaks through every single day.

It is into that multitude of saints, into that great household of God, that churches everywhere welcomed new members through the waters of baptism on Sunday.  We were one of them.  Each of us renewed our baptismal promises to love God and our neighbor and to uphold this little baby in his new life in Christ, pledging to encourage and care for him as he joined this family whose connections run so very deep.  On Friday we lost someone near and dear to us.  Sunday we baptized a new member of the family of God.  Death and life, both held together by Jesus, who conquered death on the cross, who comforts us with hope for our future, and who is continually raising us up over our worldly fears day after day after day,  That's All Saints for ya!  That's our faith:  the connections between life and death, between the saints over yonder and the saints right here.

In the Revelation to St. John the Divine we hear Jesus exclaim that he is the beginning and the end, using the imagery of the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and omega.  But you know what, he's not just the beginning and end, but he is the middle, too.  He's just as much alive now as he ever has been or will be.  He is conquering death and fear now as he always has and will, and he sits enthroned on high today, yesterday, and for all time.  He's not just alpha and omega, but he's lambda--the Greek version of the letter L, which falls right in the middle of the Greek alphabet.  The hope of the saints is not just something that someone promised in the past, nor something for us to simply look forward to in the future, but it is a present reality for us even now.  Christ is alive!  The saints are alive in Christ!  And as the household of God has grown a little this All Saints we are all reminded that we are numbered among those saints, and that our hope is in the same God who raised them, who will raise us, and who offers us love and light over our everyday fear and darkness.  Blessed feast, my brothers and sisters, and may all the saints, past, present, and yet to come, pray for us.

All Saints Day by Terry Ratliff