Thoughts on Today’s Lessons forNov. 1, 2015
The Raising of Lazarus, a medieval illumination (Folio 171r) in Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1413-1489.
It is All Saints Day! We dress the altar not in the black of mourning but the white of hope and joy. We remember that we are dust, and to dust we shall return; yet we celebrate the communion of saints, the living and the dead, all bound together in Christ. These ideas are all knit together in today’s readings, beginning with the Prophet Isaiah’s vision of a delicious feast of rich food and aged, clear wines at a banquet table that will welcome all the people of all the nations, united at last in a kingdom where death and tears are no more.
First Reading (Alternate): Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9
It is All Saints Day! We dress the altar not in the black of mourning but the white of hope and joy. We remember that we are dust, and to dust we shall return; yet we celebrate the communion of saints, the living and the dead, all bound together in Christ. Today’s Preface and Collect remind us that God’s saints surround us with a great cloud of witnesses that gives us joy and inspires us in life and in the Body of Christ. These ideas are all knit together in today’s readings, beginning with Wisdom’s promise that peace, love and joy with God await God’s faithful people.
Psalm: Psalm 24
Bible scholars find hints of ancient liturgy in this Psalm, perhaps a hymn to be sung in procession toward the Temple, rhetorically asking how one earns the right to come in and worship. Hearing this Psalm with modern ears, perhaps we can take joy from the assurance that all who come “with clean hands and pure hearts” can count on the protection of God, the King of Glory.
Second Reading: Revelation 21:1-6a
Do these verses seem familiar? We frequently hear them at funerals, as one of the readings used in the liturgy for celebration of a life. It is a worthy choice, with its phrases of hope for all God’s people in a new Jerusalem: a new heaven and new earth where God is with us, wiping away our tears, and banishing crying and pain in a place of joy, where death and mourning will be no more.
Gospel: John 11:32-44
We may have faith in the hope of an eternal life of joy and peace with God, but that doesn’t mean we don’t feel sorry when a friend or loved one dies. Even Jesus wept when he learned that his friend Lazarus had died. But then, in this touching story, Jesus prays, Jesus calls out, and Lazarus rises! Jesus says “No” to the death of Lazarus, just as God will say “No” to death for Jesus and for us all on Easter Day.