Sermon All Saints 2010-Rev. 21:1-6, John 11

A lady at Crown Pointe said that she needed to hear of heaven more, as she was too upset to hear about it at funerals. So, All Saints Day fits her need and our need to hear more of heaven when we recall those who have gone on before us. Death's hand haunts all pastors, and turning 55 has turned my thoughts to mortality even more.I visited Chicago for a discussion of the christian funeral last month and read the poet/funeral director Thomas Lynch's book, the Undertaking.  I've looked into making my own casket but then wonder about storage. I was pleased to see that Walmart now has a number of caskets for less than $2000 on its web site.

All Christians talk a good game about death being defeated at Easter, but the old Halloween Grim Reaper scares us most of the time. Yet, "our eyes are fixed on a distant horizon" (Long Accompanying: 40).

 

Our readings this morning look forward to that distant horizon when Death will be banished from the kingdom of God. As Moltmann said one day Death will die and Hell can go to hell." (Long: 44) At long last, the last enemy will be cast into the outer darkness. The cause of so much pain and misery will be removed. All of us are surely in need of that hopeful vision, as we endure too much loss in this world. At the same time, we are in love with this world, maybe too much. Nathaniel Hawthorne said that passengers on the celestial railroad stop at Vanity Fair, our version would be the mall and call the stop the true and only heaven; they have no interest in the shining city  over the horizon. However the streets of Vanity Fair, the world of the mall, would be filled with churches. In heaven, eternal life and worship life will be mingled together, in a seamless garment of life.

 

With God bringing us into a new world, our lives will count  for something more than the discrete sum of events and experiences. they will be connected to the life of God and the countless other lives on this planet. In eternity their sound will echo and their effects will ripple through time. Our baptism will be complete. As our deaths will be gathered into the death of Christ, our new life will be gathered into the new, resurrection life of Christ. I am the resurrection and the life says Jesus. Notice the present tense, even as Martha speaks of a future state. In heaven the resurrected will live with the Living Resurrected One.

 

God has all the time in the world for us.Revelation says that God's dwelling place will be with us. Our lives will be with God, in God, united in the peace and restoration of God. Those afflicted with dementia will have their memories and their best selves restored. those who wake up in the morning with pain could run and dance again. In heaven, we will have all the time in the world to come to know God and each other, face to face, without all of the masks and defenses we need for protecting our fragile selves. I love the phrase I first heard in process theology, "in God nothing worth saving is ever lost." I don't pretend to know of heaven beyond the few tantalizing biblical images and hints. I do believe in the life of the world to come. We yearn for a place where are dreams for peace, justice, fulfillment will meet in salvation's halls. In the end, heaven is all about life with God, so the images we draw of all the good we associate with God gets imagined in heaven. Heaven will be what we need, how we need it, as we live together in what our souls crave, for all the time in the world.