Grace and peace, and certainly a word of welcome and thanksgiving on this day of major significance in the calendar of the Church Year, celebrating on All Saints Day the great “capital letter” saints and heroes of our Christian heritage, and then on the day after, All Souls Day, the greater multitude of saints, all faithful departed, and especially those whom we have known and loved.
A season of remembrance in the Christian family.—And of course here at St. Andrew’s for a number of years now a day we have observed and celebrated meaningfully and beautifully with the gift of music.
So I begin with thanks, to the members of the orchestra this morning, and to our choir, with visiting friends, to our Assistant Organist and Composer in Residence, Ayo Oluranti, conducting this morning, to Pete Luley of course, our Organist and Choirmaster, to our own Joanne Luchsinger, who is the executive director of the Festival Orchestra, to Dr. George Knight, chairman of the St. Andrew’s Music Guild, and of course with special thanks to the members of our Friends of Music, for the generous contributions that make this morning possible, for our whole St. Andrew’s All Saints Music Festival. And last but not by any means least Jinny Fiske and all those who have contributed to our wonderful hospitality. This the “seventh annual.” It is all just truly a blessing.
In a very profound way I think our preacher this morning is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and certainly this beautiful Mass speaks to us and unfolds the meaning and depth of our worship in a way that is deeply communicative, but also beyond words. And as we gather around Word and Sacrament, there is in this music a space created in us to receive the miraculous and living presence of the Word made flesh, the Bread of Heaven and the Cup of Salvation.
In the old pageant story of Christmas Eve the doors and homes of the little town of Bethlehem were closed and locked, until that one Innkeeper was able to find a place for the child to be born. May we each, and I know each of us in our own way, find a door in ourselves to open, this morning of All Saints Day, and to welcome him as he would be born into our lives.
In the midst of that, I would this morning highlight for just this one moment and phrase as we have heard it this morning in the reading from the Revelation to St. John the Divine, as St. John in his mystical vision is transported to the highest reality—not of another place, but I think the better metaphor is “another time”-- another time, the great future destiny of all creation. Heaven and earth passed away, the New Jerusalem, the glorious day of God’s new creation dawning, and the word from the throne of heaven proclaims, “Behold, I make all things new.” --“Behold, I make all things new.”
There is some irony in that the great themes of this All Saints Day so often very naturally turn our attention to the past. To the great heroes of faith in ancient days, and to the memories of those whom we have loved, but see no longer. Those recollections are of course good, and we would pray always that we would be inspired and comforted in them.
But simply to say that the powerful invitation this morning is not to keep our eyes in the rear view mirror, but instead to be inspired and comforted and energized with this great vision forward, of God’s future, and of our place in God’s future.
“But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day; the saints triumphant rise in bright array; the King of glory passes on his way. Alleluia!”
In the Biblical witness this isn’t about our “going up to heaven” to rest on clouds and play harps day after day into eternity. The New Jerusalem comes here, and I love this phrase, coming to us from God “a bride adorned for her bridegroom.” A restoration and renewal of this world, this great cosmic reality of God’s creation. As we heard from the angel in the great story of the Ascension: in the same way that he departed, he will return. Or as St. Paul says, it’s not so much that we go to meet Jesus, but that with the fanfare of great trumpets he returns to us, and we rise up to meet him. All of us, as we confess in the creed: the quick and the dead. Here. Christ at the Cross unlocks the door, pushes back the stone to let in the light of the first morning of the world.
A restoration and a renewal that we all of us, the living and the dead, are raised up for, all together, and into a fullness of life, an abundance of life, that will complete the highest and best of our character, our values—as we are able even now to catch a glimpse, in the renewal of life in baptism, in the deeper healing of our spiritual brokenness in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. A glimpse in the effort to create and live in the beauty of holiness, to work for justice and peace, in the turning of our hearts in kindness to friend and stranger. In every offering of patient love.
It is of course beyond all words and imagery and any concept we can grasp. But it is even so, the basis of our greatest hope. All Saints just another word for us, for Easter. All this and all our lives now in Christ we might even think of as raw materials to be taken up by God in the fullness of time. Certainly the great acts of witness and service by the heroes of days gone by. But equally in the quiet and unseen corners of every faithful life and every faithful heart. The old body not cast away, but renewed in resurrection. So that the work of the grave is overturned. So that death has no victory. “Behold, I make all things new.”
This all an invitation to us to begin our new lives here and now, to roll up our sleeves and to get to work, creating, forgiving, blessing, healing, loving. To say, Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Make me and make us here and now a part of your future. Your future being born now in us. Where there is hatred, to sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. And certainly, in it all, where the new Sunday morning and new life is dawning in the midst of our lives, may everything we say and do be the music of heaven.
Bruce Robison
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