For all the saints

Thursday, October 31, 2024

All Saints Eve

All Hallows Eve (Halloween)

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

For all the saints

Jesus told the Pharisees, “Go and tell that fox Herod that I cast out demons and perform healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I accomplish my purpose. But it is impossible that a prophet should die outside of Jerusalem.”

My friends were in Mexico City last night, awaiting the weekend celebrations of Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. On this All Saints Day, families welcome back the souls of their deceased relatives for a brief reunion that includes food, drink and celebration.

Our grandsons are dressing up for Halloween tonight, two Roman soldiers carrying swords along with their trick-or-treat baskets.

Jesus has work to do these next two days, and then on the third he “accomplishes his purpose.” The spirit world is busy these few days at the end of October. We do our own work, piercing the darkness.

Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.

God is in heaven and we are on earth, so let our words be few. So said Qoheleth. But Jesus brings God down to earth, where the devil already resides. Jesus’ words are powerful and true, as he warns his listeners, weeping for them.

How many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling! Behold, your house will be abandoned.

Earlier this week our centering prayer group read Henri Nouwen on friendship. His emphasis was on eternal relationship more than what we have on earth.

True friendships are lasting because true love is eternal. A friendship in which heart speaks to heart is a gift from God, and no gift that comes from God is temporary or occasional. All that comes from God participates in God’s eternal life.

I don’t often think this way. My finitude is friends with your finitude, and then one of us dies, and I find another finitude. But God has so much more for me than that. I talk sometimes with my Aunt Mary, who died in 2006, or my other, who died on November 10, 2021, or my dad, who died on Thanksgiving Day 2002. Would that I could do this more. Why don’t I? Cause I’m caught in our culture?

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

More than the culture, Paul says. Our struggle requires the strength of Jesus to lift us up and through our limits into what God invites us into. Nouwen wants us with him in this brave new world.

You have to trust that every true friendship has no end, that a communion of saints exists among all those, living and dead, who have truly loved God and one another. You know from experience how real this is. Those you have loved deeply and who have died live on in you, not just as memories but as real presences.

This communion is worth living for, dying for, fighting for, celebrating with all our might. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. What a world without end we live in. Death is not the end of anything.

Stand firm, then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Fifty years ago on early mornings in Boonville, California, a singer with guitar shook us out of our sleeping bags in the Chicken Palace. Another day was beginning at the Creative Community Project (Moonies) camp. Outside we circled up around the guitar player and sang a song or two before we did some calisthenics. Some songs were Christian hymns, some of which I’d never heard before. Like this one, “For All the Saints.”

For all the saints who from their labors rest

Who thee, by faith, before the world confessed,

Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blessed

Alleluia, alleluia!

 

O blest Communion, fellowship divine

We feebly struggle, they in glory shine

Yet all are one in thee for all are thine

Alleluia, alleluia!

 

But yonder breaks, a yet more glorious day

The saints triumphant, rise in bright array.

The king of glory passes on his way

Alleluia, alleluia!

There are more verses, all of them majestic. One of the YouTube comments itself sang to me:

“The song has a triumphant swing to it, militant but not military, triumphant but not triumphalist, proud but never arrogant, defiant but in no way embittered.”

Hallelujah! Happy Halloween! God bless us, every one.

(Ephesians 6, Psalm 144, Luke 19, Luke 13)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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