Tomorrow in many churches, All Saints Day will be celebrated. We will sing “For All the Saints” and name those who died in the past year. There will most likely be some tears and perhaps even a laugh or two, remembering the life of a loved one.
For most of human history, death has been a close partner in life. Life expectancies were short. Medical knowledge was lacking. During the Roman empire, life expectancy was 28 years. In medieval Britain, it raised to 30. It has only been in the last 100 years, with the leaps made in medicine, that life expectancy has surged to nearly 80. These medical advances caused death to no longer be understood as a natural part of living, but a pathology to be avoided at all cost. Where once we were comfortable with both death and grief, making space for it in life, we now hide death and seek to curtail the grieving process.
Try as we might, we cannot keep death at arms length. As much as we might like to surround our loved ones and especially our heart in a hazmat protective suit, death will inevitably come to those we love, and to we ourselves.
Some of us saw death this year. Many of us had our lives profoundly impacted by the loss of a loved one. Grief clings to us as bitter soot on our souls, because life has been taken from us, wrenched from our grasp. The empty place beside us in bed, or at the dinner table, or in the office, or next door, or at the family gathering, is an ever present reminder that cannot be denied that death has paid a visit and left with one we love.
Even though death has taken some dear ones from us, my faith in the risen Christ tells me that they are in fact here, still amongst us, a part of the great cloud of witness and within the communion of saints. My faith helps me continue to experience the love we shared that not even death can take away. Faith teaches me that the dead are never very far from the living.
This weekend is a time when many cultures and religious traditions believe that the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest. It is a time to honor those who have passed, those saints of our lives who now rest in the arms of God. We in the Spanish Language/Liberation Theology Immersion group from our annual conference were in Mexico for El Dia de Los Muertos, and joined the people of a small town, going from home to home of those who had lost a loved one this year, to view the altars they had made for them and to be offered food and drink as a way to celebrate their lives.
Who are the saints in your life, those who from their labors rest, who today are sitting now at God’s side, watching over and caring for you, continuing to surround you in love that not even death can destroy?
Whose voice do you still hear? Who do you remember? Who showed you a bit of what God is like? Who loved you? Whose love was so big that not even death can put an end to it? I invite you to post their picture below, and offer a memory or two.
Thomas Lynch, an undertaker turned poet, reminds us to be gentle with ourselves and our grief. It is hard work. His advice is this:
“There's no easy way to do this. So do it right: weep, laugh, watch, pray, love, live, give thanks and praise; comfort, mend, honor, and remember.”
I invite you, tomorrow, to turn to your pewmates as you remember the saints of your lives. Offer comfort. Offer affirmation. Offer life. Offer love as we live into and move through our grief, as we surround ourselves with saints.
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