Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

All Sermons are © Copyrighted and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express permission of the author.

I have spoken before from this pulpit about our dog, Shannon, who is not very bright. If Shannon is in our bedroom, and knows we don't want her there, she pushes her head under the bed and lies very still -- she thinks we can't see her. But, of course, all the rest of her shows. Very foolish to think that: just because we can't see something, it doesn't exist.

Men and women sometimes employ strategies like that in regard to death. Truth is, nothing characterizes life as well as its perishibility. Yet we hide from death, often in ridiculous ways, like Shannon. Louis XV made a fetish of if. He decreed that no one around him should ever speak of death nor allude to anything that would make him think of it. He refused to be informed when members of his family passed away. He wouldn't look at a grave stone or a monument erected in someone's memory. As if all that wealth and pomp and vainglory in the French court could insulate him from, make him immune to death. It only made him look ridiculous. And he died in his time, like everybody else. Hollywood turns death into a cartoon, hospitals hide it, funeral directors mask it with chemicals and make-up. We hide from the angel of death.

But why? Death is no enemy to Christians. Our religion has never been a good hiding place, but it has often been a great source of courage -- courage to help us face both life and death. And the beginning of courage is facing the truth. Today, on All Saints Sunday, we will baptize a baby (the ancient sign for beginning a Christian pilgrimage), we will receive communion (a Christian's nourishment along the way), and we will remember with love those who were baptized before us, drank this communion, and are now asleep in death. Life has its milestones, and we know it. It has a beginning, and an end. Nothing to fear. The early Christians buried their dead in the walls and under the floors of the very catacombs where they worshipped -- so they could say their prayers, literally, over the bones of those who had gone before, "the saints," as they called them -- many of whom had been martyred for Christ. The early Christians were not afraid of death. They had the cure. Later, when people were building churches like Oak Chapel, they would dig the first grave just outside the church wall. They would lay out the bodies in their parlors, do the funeral services in their churches, ring the bell, and bury their loved ones right outside. Today we tuck these things away. "Out of sight, out of mind," we seem to be saying. But why?

Here's the problem with prettying up life (and leaving out death) like that: whenever we hide from something, we will never achieve victory over it, for we do not even admit it to out minds. If, like reckless teenagers, we think we are indestructible, then (like reckless teenagers) we will not learn to protect ourselves in this life nor to prepare ourselves for the life that is to come. Why speak of heaven, if there is no death? Why discuss forgiveness, if there is no sin? Why remember the dead, on All Saints Day, if we'll never have to face death ourselves?

St. John the Divine, in his Book of Revelation, bounces back and forth between this world and the next. We remember his graphic portrayals of the plagues, the warfare, the natural disasters that will accompany the end of the world. "You don't want to be on the wrong side when these things occur," he is saying to his readers, who are wavering in their faith. But then he stops, abruptly, and talks about heaven. The contrast is powerful. And in today's lesson, at the end of his book, he does it one more time. He tells us about his most wonderful vision. "I saw a brand new heaven and earth -- all polished up and perfect, as God made it in the first place. And then I saw a gleaming city (a whole city!), sparkling in the sun, being lowered down from heaven, and I knew it must be the new Jerusalem -- to replace that old, corrupt city, where humanity had been so deaf to God -- the replacement city was as pretty as a bride on her wedding day," he says. And then he hears God say, "I'm coming to live with you. We're all going to be one. I'm going to wipe away all your tears, because death will be no more. No more mourning and crying, no more pain. These things are gone for good. I'm going to begin creation all over again, making everything brand new. So that's it. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I started all this, and I will bring it all to a close. Don't be afraid." And the Christians in the seven churches of Asia Minor, to whom John's book was addressed, read his words, and kept the faith.

All Saints Day is not ancestor worship. Some world religions are into that, but we worship only one God. Nevertheless, this day does remind us that our faith family extends not only laterally -- and includes Christian brothers and sisters all over the world -- but also longitudinally, back through all the years and forward into the future. We think on this day of the great champions of faith: the apostles and martyrs, the Augustines, and Luthers, and Calvins, and Wesleys, and all the rest, who ("in spite of dungeon, fire and sword") kept faith. We remember also those local saints who passed the faith on to us. Our parents, Sunday School teachers, pastors, Christian friends, mentors in the faith. And we thank God for them. They all died, but they are really only asleep in the faith. We feel a communion with them, and we look forward to joining them someday in the Kingdom, in the new Jerusalem, where the rivers of living water flow directly from the throne of God.