When we have the Gospel reading tonight at the 5pm service, I might look out into the congregation and see someone who looks like Lazarus. Covered in strips of cloth kind of like a Zombie (if you're thinking about Halloween movies)...Lazarus emerges from the cave. Jesus commands: "unbind him and let him go." Lazarus was dead, but Jesus called him to come out of the cave...to come out of death into life.
This is a great reading for All Saints' Day because it speaks of the eternal life we share with God through Christ. Jesus says, "I am resurrection and I am life" meaning that through him, at that time, Lazarus could live. Just as through Jesus, you and I can live the life of grace now...the life we will know at its fullest after we die to live with God.
And because we share that life with God now, we also share in that life with those we love but see no longer - the saints in heaven. When we say we believe in the communion of Saints we say that we know that we, the saints on earth, are in relationship with the saints in heaven. All Saints' Day is all about connections. Jesus is connected with those who have died; we are connected to Jesus; we are connected to the saints in heaven. Every time we come to the Altar to receive the Bread of Heaven, we know we are connected.
1 comment:
I am grateful for the community I found and was welcomed into at St. Paul's on-the-Hill.
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