November 3, 2024
All Saints’ Sunday
Rev. Mary Erickson
Hope Lutheran Church
John 11:32-44
The Life of the World to Come
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Miss Peggy Lee had been a popular singer in the age of big bands. She sang for Benny Goodman in the 1940’s. However, in 1969, at an age when most singers have faded from the popular scene, Peggy came out with a big hit. The song, “Is that All There Is,” soared through the charts. I remember hearing it, and my small 9-year-old self was immediately captivated.
In the song, the singer relates various instances in her life. The first is as a small girl, when the family house was destroyed by fire. Then, when she was 12, she went to the circus. And as a young woman, she was jilted in love. After each instance, the singer had the same response:
Is that all there is? Is that all there is?
If that’s all there is, my friends,
Then let’s keep dancing,
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball,
If that’s all there is.
The song ends with the singer contemplating the end of her life. And she knows with certainty that she’ll have the same, skeptical response: Is that all there is?
As we gather here on All Saints’ Sunday, we have a decidedly different opinion. We believe that this is NOT all there is. We believe in the communion of saints, the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.
We come here today and we remember those saints who have passed on before us. We light candles to recognize the life they lived. Their legacies touched us. We speak their names. Today we honor our dead.
All Saints’ Day reminds us that we are all mortal. And if we pay attention, mortality has a lesson to teach us. This life we have is fragile in nature. We see that especially on the ends of life – new birth and the final stages. The temporality and fragility of this life show us that it’s a precious gift.
Sisters Martha and Mary were very much aware of this as they mourned at the grave of their brother, Lazarus. And Jesus, too, even though he knew full well what he was about to do, Jesus was also overcome by the sobering nature of mortality.
Each day of this earthly, temporary life is a gift.
Today we celebrate the communion of God’s saints. This includes the saints in glory and all of us breathing saints here on earth. And in our observation, we acknowledge two things: what it is that holds us together (that is, the glue of our community) and also the things that cannot rend us apart.
What cannot separate us are all the great, physical dividers: distance, time, death. These great dividers have no power over us because of the thing that binds us together: the spirit of God!
• Distance: Distance has no ability to split us because God’s spirit is everywhere. Have you ever had a good friend or a relative who moved away. And then years later you connect with them, and it’s like nothing ever changed. You just pick up where you ended. There’s a greater spirit that binds you together.
• Time: Time lacks the power to keep us apart because God is eternal. God reigns in, with, and under time.
• And even death cannot separate the Communion of Saints because our Lord Jesus Christ has defeated death.
The Spirit of God holds together this beautiful communion of saints. And through God’s Spirit, we remain connected with ALL the saints, across great spans of distance, through time, and even through the veil of death.
Christian writer Frederick Buechner meditated on this in his book Whistling in the Dark. He speaks as the one who has departed:
“When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are.
It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us.
It means that if we meet again, you will know me.
It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.
For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost.”
The writer Henri Nouwen voiced something very similar. He observes that what ties us together is God’s eternal life. Nouwen recognized how the love we feel for someone can grow stronger even after they’ve died. This was certainly true of the disciples’ love for Jesus. Even after Jesus departed, their bonds to him continued to grow. Nouwen concluded:
“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.” *
The examples of the saints departed inspire and encourage us. Their memory empowers us to have courage as we face adversity. And just as they endowed us with their legacy, we strive to pass along our wisdom and kindness to each other, especially to younger generations.
We are mortal, and that fragile temporality teaches us to recognize this life as the precious gift it is.
But we believe in something beyond this life. We believe in the power of Christ’s resurrection. Jesus’ raising of Lazarus was a foreshadowing of what we can all expect: that Christ has power over death. That there is new life in the world to come.
And believing in what happens after we die makes all the difference in how we live. As St. Paul remarked, “From now on we regard no one from a human point of view.” We take the long view. As people of faith we understand ourselves and one another from the perspective of the life of the world to come. We are esteemed and loved by God. We are the children of God, brothers and sisters of Christ Jesus our Lord.
Walking through this limited, temporal realm, we recognize the hidden value and nobility of each and every one of us. This communion of saints is an eternal fellowship. It’s a bonded community, held together by the limitless love and eternal life of Christ.
Knowing this makes all the difference in how we live in the here and now. Our faith guides us. And one day, like the saints who have passed on, we shall also face to face.
*From You Are the Beloved” by Henri Nouwen
