Greetings to you on All Saints’ Sunday and the first Sunday in November. Today was a wonderful day and it appears everyone remembered to adjust their clocks at the end of Daylight Saving Time. We had a nice turn out and we demonstrated that God rewards us when we are faithful, not especially perfect. As November opens, we realize Advent arrives three weeks from today. We celebrate the lives and memory of the saints who have led us to this point in our life as a church.
In worship we are reminded that the saints in our midst are a model of God’s love and mercy. Our collect writer paints the picture of a Christian community as one that shares communion and fellowship as a reminder of our part of the greater body of Christ. We are joined to build ourselves into God’s unending joy. In the Hebrew scripture passage from the Wisdom of Solomon tell the story that all who trust in God are maintained in God’s hand forever. And those who trust God will see God’s everlasting love. Our Psalmist sang the song relating the sovereignty of God, but not at the exclusion of creation, rather as the source of redemption for all creation. God is great and glorious. Our Gospel was the story of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus. Jesus was filled with real emotion and unbound Lazarus from the things that prevented him from living fully with God.
Our sermon today was based on the lesson from Revelation. In the lesson we hear John of Patmos describe the coming of God to live with humans and God’s re-creation of the fellowship of humanity with God. John relates a story that the past, present, and future are part of the arc of our life and important for who we are as believers. We are invited to live a life, just like those who we remember on All Saints’ Day, believing that God dwells right here with us in community and that what is most important is to get out of the way and look for God’s welcoming hand, calling us into our future.
I invite your comments,
Les+
Readings: Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9; Psalm 24; Revelation 21:1-6a; John 11:32-44
Video of worship: https://youtu.be/1I0iK31PRDs
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