Rev’d Caroline - [email protected], 01285 712467
Readings for Sunday: Revelation 7.9-end; 1 John 3.1-3; Matthew 5.1-12
This Sunday we enter into our November season of remembering, through the special services of All Saints’ (1st November) and All Souls’ (2nd November). The distinction between the two is a fine one, made sharper for us because we’re celebrating them both on the same day; All Saints’ at the 10am, and All Souls’ at our annual Remembering Service at 3pm.
At All Saints’ we are celebrating the faithful following of Jesus, and bringing to the forefront of our minds that promise that Jesus gives us – that through that faith we will have a place in the Kingdom of Heaven, and the gift of eternal life.
All Souls’ is a more personal, thoughtful service – we allow ourselves to slow down and remember those closer to us. Our celebration of faithful lives is coloured by our own close-held grief. Sorrow and celebration mix at All Souls’.
But in both these ways of remembering we hold before us the promise and call of our Lord Jesus. The promise is a great one, the greatest one, indeed. We are promised that through our faithful following of Jesus, death is no longer something to fear. His resurrection will be ours, and we will have a place at his side in his eternal kingdom. That vision in Revelation is of all the saints gathered into glory, robes washed through the blood of the Lamb, and every tear wiped from their eyes.
If that is the promise, then the call is sharper, because it is here and now, a reminder and a challenge. That future glory is underpinned by a living out of Jesus’ mission in an incomplete and broken world. John describes it in words of wisdom and encouragement: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” God’s love for us isn’t conditional, based on how whether we earn it or not. His love comes first, his adoption offered freely to all.
We are God’s children now, loved, blessed, called to future glory, and that means we stand in the brokenness and mess of the world unconquered, and ready to face the darkness. In Jesus’ words in the Beatitudes, those who truly follow Jesus: the meek, the merciful, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the peacemakers and pure of heart – these will face trials and tribulations here and now, but they will do so undaunted – ‘happy’, in fact!
These are not future blessings or promises being offered by Jesus, but a candid reflection of how it feels to walk the path of righteousness even when threatened and mocked by a world that rejects it. We are blessed, happy now, because our feet are planted on solid rock – the knowledge of Christ’s salvation, and God’s plan for us. That reassurance is supreme. Nothing can shake it. We stand and do what is good even when that is difficult and uncomfortable, because we know what good looks like and how priceless it truly is.
So this week, let us renew our resolve with all the saints – looking to that great cloud of witnesses who have walked this hard and rewarding road – to be ambassadors of Christ in the hard times and the good, with his hope and promise leading us onward.
Rev’d Caroline
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