Homily (All Saints) November 1, 2009

My sisters and brothers, spiritually speaking, our extended family is vast and inspiring.

In our first reading from Isaiah we hear about the final fulfillment of God promises at the end of time. In God’s Kingdom there will be rich party fare and there will be no cause for grief or pain.

In this passage, the deceased are pictured as being covered with a “shroud” or “sheet”; this will be removed when God does away with death forever. In the eternal life of the Kingdom, God will “wipe away” one of the roots of all misery, our mortality. The remnant, the godly, will acknowledge God, for whom they have waited and who has saved them.

Our second reading is from John’s record of his vision of the end-times. Previously he has told of the destruction of the old city, Babylon (code name for Rome) and of the old heaven and earth; the ungodly have been driven off to punishment. Only the godly, a remnant, remain. Now John sees the new creation. The sea, a symbol of turbulence, unrest and chaos, is no more. He sees the New Jerusalem, a holy city of divine origin, beautiful and lovely. Some have interpreted this city as the church, set apart for God’s use in the world while others view this as a glimpse at the reunion of heaven and earth. Once again, God makes all things right and joyful for his people.

Alpha” and “Omega” is the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet; this imagery is intended to describe God as all encompassing.

Our gospel story today (resurrection of Lazarus) is one of Jesus’ most powerful miracles. Four days in the tomb, there is little doubt to the crowd that the man was truly dead. Reviving him from a near death illness was not possible. Yet, Jesus’ mere command makes it happen. Most likely John relates Jesus’ weeping because to express how he is touched by the pain of those he loves and shares that pain in some real way. Martha tries to restrain Jesus from viewing the decomposing corpse of his friend. And Jesus responds: did I not tell you that if you believed you would see God’s power to end death? After giving this reassurance, he issues the Divine Command and Lazarus is fully restored.

Our readings and celebration today revolve around Christian belief that in Christ we have a spiritual connection in all the virtuous people who have gone before us. All saints and All Souls days celebrate the final fulfillment of God’s promises of a holy paradise and the foretaste we experience now as God’s people. Do you remember Jesus’ preaching; the Kingdom is at hand, even among you? Today we celebrate that what Christ announced is true and our unity with Christ and one another extends not just we other believers in this life but in the life to come as well.

It is believed by many scholars that the commemoration of all the saints on November first originated in Ireland, spread from there to England, and then to the continent of Europe. That it had reached Rome and had been adopted there early in the ninth century is attested by a letter of
Pope Gregory the Fourth, who reigned from 828 to 844, to Emperor Louis “the Pious,” urging that such a festival be observed throughout the Holy Roman Empire.

The desire of Christian people to express the intercommunion of the living and the dead in the Body of Christ by a commemoration of those who had lived the faith in days past, is was far older than the early Middle Ages. The patriarch John Chrysostom, who died in 407, says that a festival of All Saints was observed on the first Sunday after Pentecost in Constantinople at the time of his episcopate.

Today, we join this tradition in celebrating our vast spiritual family, in Christ.