Remembering God S Saints Good for the Living

“REMEMBERING GOD’S SAINTS – GOOD FOR THE LIVING”

Sermon preached by Rev. Rob Catford, HeathmontUnitingChurch

Sunday 4th November 2012 – All Saints and All Souls

Scripture – Isaiah 25 : 6 – 9, Hebrews 11 : 32, 37 – 12 : 3, John 11 : 17 – 26

Human beings all over the world seem to have a universal need and a great variety of customs to remember and honour their dead. You may have heard of the Chinese Ghost Festival, the Japanese Bon Festival, the Mexican Day of the Dead, or the Indonesian island where effigies of the dead are ranged in caves in a sheer cliff face. In Christian culture countries we find many interesting customs that continue today, like visiting graves with offerings of candles, holy water, food, milk, and flowers. Some build little cities of marble houses for the departed and gather there for meals where people exchange memories or gifts for their loved ones.

In the Church, many Christians and churches begin November with a time of remembrance, starting with All Souls Eve or Halloween with its wierd spirits, witches and pumpkins. But the real Christian heart of the November remembrance is the celebration of All Saints Day and All Souls Day, when we remember and honour saints and loved ones in the community of faith.

All Saints, originally observed with Easter, is now a special day on 1st November each year for Christians to remember and honour all of God’s saints, servants and martyrs. They are human and imperfect people like us who have left us a particular example of Christlike life or service that inspires others to follow. The saints are ordinary Christians whose extraordinary lives help us see more of the powerful love of Christ and the light of God’s goodness for our own living. That is why our UnitingChurch has produced a simplified list or calendar of saints and servants of God whom we may remember at various days through the year. We have provided a copy of that Calendar this morning for you to take home, to read and use in your own way.

All Souls follows All Saints, and is a second more inclusive day for Christians to remember ordinary Christians, family and friends who have lived good and faithful, if not special or famous lives. It is an opportunity for us to thank God for the lasting good and blessing that humble good people can leave behind with us who have known and loved them, and to pray that they may share God’s peace and joy in heaven. Some congregations mark All Souls by recalling the names of those who have died in the past year as we will do this morning.

At first, this focus on the faithful departed may seem a little strange and unfamiliar to us. All Saints and All Souls was not a strong part of our Protestant heritage because the reformers distrusted the Catholic cult of Saints with its relics, shrines and embroidered legends. They also distrusted the practice of offerings and prayers to the saints as a rival to faith and trust in Christ alone. And we ourselves may feel that death is the real end of our treasured relationships, and that bereaved people really should accept loss, move on, and get on with the challenge of living as Christians in their present rather than in their past. And there is some wisdom and truth in all that.

But you and I also know that the dead we love and respect continue to live on spiritually for us. As we recall their personal qualities of faith, goodness, courage, humanity, compassion and love, they do inspire, enrich and encourage us in the present. As a pastor I see that in the treasured photos and albums of loved ones in many homes I visit, and in the memories and stories that people so often want to share, and in the anniversaries that are never forgotten. Our loved ones may be gone, but they are never forgotten. They may be living with God in heaven, but they are also mysteriously alive, powerful, and inspiring us in our day by day living right now.

1. In today’s Gospel Jesus encourages us to face death with grateful hope in his power over death.

Our reading from John 11 is a high point about life and death in John’s Gospel story. Jesus’ close friend Lazarus, brother of Martha and Mary of Bethany is seriously ill. Jesus is delayed in travelling to help, and arrives to find his friend has died and the funeral customs underway. Martha reproaches Jesus for his delay in not coming sooner to prevent Lazarus’ death. But even now before the reality of death she voices her trust in Jesus’ ability to call on God’s help.

Jesus assures her Lazarus will live again. Martha responds with the accepted Jewish belief that he will rise again at the last day, when the Messiah arrives to inaugurate God’s new age and kingdom, and to raise the dead to new life with God and his people. Jesus replies with those dynamite words that shatter death for us: I am the resurrection, and I am the life. In other words God’s longed for messiah, and the resurrecting power and new life of God are already here and available in me. Jesus speaks like God to his people of old, claiming the most absolute power and authority over life and death. Then he adds this promise: Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. To Jesus the dead are not dead, but alive in a new way to God and to us. This is an assurance which changes for ever how we ourselves can face death with hope instead of fear and despair. It is an assurance by which we can remember and honour our dear departed with lasting gratitude for the good they can continue to give us.

2. Hebrews encourages us to welcome them and Christ to our hearts.

In this wonderful passage the writer gives us a powerful picture of life as a race, in which we are running in a stadium with tiers of encouraging past spectators to urge us on. In chapter 11 the writer lists all the famous men and women of faith in the long history of the Jewish people – Enoch, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Moses and many more. He finishes his list by adding that without us their faith and influence is not perfect or complete. We do owe something to all the good and great people who have lived before us and left us an example and influence in our own lives. As we run the race of our lives, they surround and encourage us to put aside our sins and faults that hold us back, and to persevere in looking and running towards the goal of Jesus. Jesus is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith in God, because he came through suffering and death to new life by trusting God. To Hebrews the past saints and servants of God may surround us to encourage us, but in the race itself it is Christ who runs with us to blaze the way of humble faith and service for us and to be the goal towards which we must all strive.

In St Petersburg recently I was moved and impressed by a visit to the beautiful Church of the Resurrection, commonly called the Church on the Spilt Blood. It is an amazing multi coloured Russian wedding cake building with lots of spires and decorations. It was built to commemorate the crazy assassination of the compassionate reforming Czar Alexander II by a bomber in 1881. Its high soaring interior is covered with gold and coloured mosaics and icons of faithful saints and servants of God, surrounding the murdered ruler’s monument. It is a sermon for the living like our reading from Hebrews today. Its unmistakable message is: You must complete the race of those before you, especially this Czar who died doing good to improve and liberate Russia and its people. You can continue and complete what he started.

So All Saints and All Souls can be a time when we remember God’s saints and those gone before us, and find ways to complete in our own lives the good they have given us.

In the Bible and early Church, saints were all ordinary Christians, called to live as followers of Christ in faith, in hope, and in love. But as time went on, saints came to mean not all ordinary Christians, but extraordinary Christians who were martyrs for their faith, or gave their lives to serve the poor, sick and disadvantaged, or lived lives totally devoted to God and prayer. Their churches and shrines became places of pilgrimage, their remains were venerated, and people prayed to them for special blessings or miracles. And the Catholic Church took charge of this “Saints Club”, deciding who was worthy to be included. For us as Protestants, our understanding of saints is more inclusive, more human, more encouraging. For us saints can be special Christians who have made the church or world better, but also everyday Christians, loved ones and friends whose lives remain signs of Christ’s love and way of life to us today.

As you reflect on God’s saints, who are the people who have shaped your faith and life by their presence and influence? Who are those departed souls who live on for you to inspire and encourage you to live as a disciple and follower of Christ? When I ask that question of myself, I am reminded of my loving wife and life partner, but also of a Sunday School teacher, a youth leader, a preacher, and a university friend who helped and influenced my faith development. And I also remember my gentle, compassionate, medical grandfather who was a faithful Christian and servant of the church, treating all his patients with equal respect and great pastoral care. Who are the special saints and souls who have shaped your life of faith? Today we can remember and give thanks, and perhaps later light a candle for them, and even from them in our own lives. Amen