I’m noticing more and more in our culture a denial of death. We usually don’t talk about people dying; instead we say they “passed,” or “left this life,” or “gone to heaven.” Even in the church we talk not about death but about someone having “completed their baptismal journey.”
Hospitals talk about people who “expired.”
In war we talk about “casualties.”
Mortuaries use make up artists and hair stylists to make the dead look more alive. And even when we bury bodies, we no longer lower the casket and place dirt on it. We leave the cemetery and other people fill in the grave alone and quietly.
But anyone who has lost a loved one knows these are just tricks, semantics. Death is real. And it is hard. And it is permanent. The more we love someone, the harder their death is on us.
The texts today recognize the reality of death. They talk about tears and about mourning, crying, and pain. They speak of a sheet and a shroud covering us up. The biblical authors knew about death. They suffered in the grief of losing loved ones.
No, death is all too real. The grief, the loss, the emptiness, the sadness, the loneliness, the sleepless nights, the tears that won’t stop, the despair are all very real. There’s no denying it. Not for anyone who has been affected by the death of someone they love.
Yes, these texts speak of death. But they also speak of life. God is the one who destroys death. In the Isaiah text, God gathers up all people for a feast beyond imagination, with the riches foods and best wines. While all are enjoying this amazing feast, did you notice what God is eating? God swallows death. God comes on that day and destroys the shroud covering all people. God eliminates the mourning, and the crying, and the pain. God comes and wipes the tears from our grieving faces and assures us that death is not the last word.
God takes care of all of God’s people, and not even death can get in the way of that. God comes to us here, on this All Saints Day, when we open up our grief and our sadness. God comes and gently wipes the tears from our eyes. And God promises again that those we love are in good hands. God, who created them and loved them and forgave them is even now taking care of them.
Death is not the last word, God says. We can trust this because of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. God has the last word. And the last word is life.
And until that last word of life is spoken again, God comes and sits with us in our grief. God comforts us in our sadness. God doesn’t leave us alone in our mourning, but is present with us gently wiping our tears.
Today is All Saints Sunday, a day to open up our grief and sadness because of death. But it is also the day to hear again God’s promise of life, abundant life, joyful life.
All Saints Day is the day to claim those promises and entrust our loved ones into the hands of the God who has given them, and still promises them, life everlasting.
I invite you to light a candle for someone you’ve lost to death. Write their name on a card and place that card in the basket. We’ll take as long as we need to do that. And then we will read aloud the names of those we have lost to death and commend them all into God’s care, trusting in the power of resurrection.
Please make your way to the candles and the table.
Pastor Rob Moss Sermons 