Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44
The Day After
I enjoy Halloween. I’ve always enjoyed dressing-up in some weird costume, and I really like candy. I have some fond memories of trick-or-treating while growing up. My father would drive my brother Lew and me throughout the countryside to our various neighbors’ and friends’ houses. It would be a sort of mini reunion in many cases. We wouldn’t simply just stop for the candy… there would also be time spent visiting. Too much time spent visiting in Lew’s and my opinion. After all, the less time spent at any given house, the more time that could be dedicated to the collection candy. I think the best part of trick-or-treating, was arriving home that night and surveying the haul of treats. Yes, the costumes that Lew and I had looked forward to wearing for weeks would be thrown off and we would converge on our piles of candy like puppies on kibble. We’d divide our hauls between us as we have different tastes in candy for the most part. Then mom and dad would set a limit on the number of pieces we were allowed to eat and then it was off to bed. Of course Lew and I would always try to sneak an extra piece or two. As my parents now read the manuscripts of my sermons when they’re posted online… consider this a confession.
The next day was usually spent sharing stories of ghost sightings and bragging about how much candy one got. As far as I was concerned the holiday of costumes and candy was over. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I found out that Halloween was originally just the eve, or the night before the actual celebration of All Saints’ Day. Actually Halloween comes from the words “All Hallows Eve.” And the word “hallow” means holy – you know, like the beginning of the “Lord’s Prayer,” “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” October 31st is really a day of preparation for the feast on November 1st. Our society has moved away from that understanding. It has moved away from celebrating the feast on November 1st. A remembrance and celebration of the saints, those people who have lived a devout Christian life, has essentially been forgotten by society.
Today, we have the opportunity to remember and celebrate the saints in our lives. No, it’s not November 1st, but that’s OK because the Sunday following All Saints’ Day is sometimes designated All Saints’ Sunday so that the congregation can celebrate and remember the saints together.
I think that it’s very important to take a day to remember those saints who have gone on before during this time of year. You see, the winter holidays are often emotionally charged, particularly with the focus on spending them with family. But what are those holidays like when we’re celebrating them for the first time without a loved one? They’re even tougher when we haven’t really taken the time to remember and celebrate the lives of those loved ones. And tougher still when we don’t reflect on the promise we have in Christ… the same promise that the saints have in Christ.
And what is that promise? Life. Well, not just life, but new life. Today’s readings from scripture give us a visual of that promise fulfilled. Isaiah describes his vision as a feast. Not just any feast, but the finest feast the world has ever seen! Isaiah says, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear” [Isaiah 25:6]. The food served is not just rich, but marrow filled! The very best! The wine is not simply well-aged, but it has been processed even further to remove any impurities! And then, amidst this extravagant feast, God will destroy the “shroud that is cast over all peoples” [Isaiah 25:7]. Do you know what you cast a shroud over? The dead. Shrouds are used to cover the dead. At this feast, God will not simply remove humanity’s death shroud, but will destroy it so that it may never be put back. So that it may never be used again. God “will swallow up death forever” [Isaiah 25:8]. According to Isaiah, God doesn’t stop there, but will “wipe away the tears from all faces” [Isaiah 25:8]. God will also take away “the disgrace of his people” [Isaiah 25:8]. Our disgrace is sin. Isaiah’s vision of God’s promise is one of great celebration, the end of death, and the end of our disgrace as creatures whose nature is sinful.
In our reading from Revelation, John describes a similar vision of God’s promise fulfilled. He too describes the end of death and our tears being wiped away [Revelation 21:4]. He also states that God’s home will be “among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them” [Revelation 21:3]. But wait… hasn’t God already dwelt among us? Aren’t Christians already his people? Isn’t the Holy Spirit with us now?
As Christians, we don’t simply wait for God’s promise to be fulfilled – we live with the knowledge that God’s promise is already fulfilled! We live with the knowledge that our sin is forgiven. We don’t live in disgrace - because God has already atoned for our sinful nature. We’re not waiting for the fulfillment of a promise. That’s already been done by God. This promise of life is a living promise – a promise that is complete for each of us, just waiting for us to accept it.
But what do we do? Yes, God has atoned for our sin through Jesus Christ. We know that it’s a complete promise. But what about those other parts of Isaiah’s and John’s visions? What about those parts about the tears being wiped away and “crying and pain will be no more” [Revelation 21:4]? Why do we still hurt? Why do we still have to say goodbye to our loved ones? Why do we still have cemeteries, and caskets, and funerals? Why do we still have flowers for memorials? These are not easy questions. As such, I will not try to give you an easy answer.
As Christians, we live with the knowledge that God’s promise is already fulfilled. We live with the knowledge that we are already forgiven. We live with the knowledge that our life will not end in spiritual death. We also know that we live in fallen creation… a world that is not reconciled with God. As Christians, we find ourselves in both Christ and the world. We find ourselves in the world, yet not of it [see John 17]. We find ourselves with conflict between knowing that God’s promise is already fulfilled while seeing a world that is still in need of reconciliation. As Christians, we live lives of life through Christ, yet are still faced with physical death. When it comes to the truth of God’s grace through Christ, we live in the already but not yet. That is we live in the world that has not yet been reconciled to Christ while our lives are in the already realized fulfillment of God’s promise through Christ.
So, what are we supposed to do? We know the truth of the “already” – that Christ has redeemed our sin and death has already been overcome. Yet we still feel the hurt of a fallen, decaying creation; where physical death occurs. How do we remember this spiritual promise fulfilled? One way we remember this promise is through Holy Communion. Here, God’s grace is somehow present. Here, somehow we get a foretaste of that heavenly feast that Isaiah writes of. Here, around the table, we somehow meet Christ, the saints, and each other.
You know, I feel a little cheated that I didn’t know about this All Saints’ Day feast for all those years. For so long I had focused just on the costumes and the candy of a holiday whose name I really didn’t know the meaning of. Who would have guessed that the real celebration comes the day after? Well, OK… for us this year, the Lord’s Day after.
SDG