The Promise is Sure

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

October 30, 2011

The Promise is Sure

Selected Texts

Music from Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem

All Saints Day is one of those days

that comes round each year on the liturgical calendar,

but it is a day we often overlook,

a day we let slide by.

Part of the problem is that

All Saints Day always falls on the first of November,

which means it typically does not fall on a Sunday.

This year it is on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday.

But the greater struggle we have

is that the very word “saint” confuses us Protestants.

We don’t have saints as other traditions do,

men and men we have set apart,

put up on pedestals as particularly holy.               

We have no Saint Patrick,

no Saint Christopher,

not even a Saint Nicholaus.

In the Reformed tradition all are saints.

You and I: we are saints,

we are the community of saints.

And all those who have gone before us,

all those on whose shoulders we stand,

they too are saints,

part of the communion of saints.

All Saints Day has become for Presbyterians a time to remember:

a time to remember those saints

who have completed their journey on this earth

and now live with Christ in God’s Heavenly Kingdom.

Death has been an all too frequent visitor

to this congregation over the past year:

members of this congregation both young and old;

members of our extended church family:

mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles,

grandmothers, grandfathers, dear friends.

With the death of each saint comes grief,

sadness,

a deep sense of loss,

a profound awareness of the presence of their absence.

We reflexively dial a telephone number

before we remember that the familiar voice,

that beloved saint,

is no longer on the other end of the line.

And yet, with the passing of every saint

even in our grief we are reminded of the promise

that is given us by God in Jesus Christ,

in Christ’s resurrection,

that each beloved saint now knows the promise of eternal life,

the very same promise each of us will know… in time.

The passing of every saint fills us with grief,

and yet also fills us with hope

as we remember that in Jesus’ resurrection,

God vanquished death,

as Paul said to the Corinthians,

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

(1 Cor. 15:26)

The 16^th century English poet John Donne

captured this promise in his famous Sonnet,

“Death be not proud,

though some have called thee mighty and dreadful,

for, thou art not so

for, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,

die not, ….…poor death,

nor yet canst thou kill me.

… why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

and death shall be no more,

death thou shalt die.”

 

Introit et Kyrie

“Grant eternal rest to them, Lord,
and let perpetual light shine on them.
A hymn befits you, God in Zion,
and a vow to you shall be fulfilled in Jerusalem.
Hear my prayer,
for unto you all flesh shall come.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.”

The theologian Jürgen Moltmann has written,

“We die a natural death,

just as everything that is born someday dies.

But we die in solidarity…

with the community of all…

[with the communion of saints].

…Our natural death brings us into the earth,

and together with this earth

we [look with all the saints to] the resurrection

and the springtime of eternal life….

(The Coming of God, 90ff)

“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord

for they rest from their Labors”

(Revelation 14:13)

Pie Jesu

“Merciful Lord Jesus,
grant them rest,
eternal rest”

In his poem “Go Down Death”,

written in 1927, James Weldon Johnson,

an African-American lawyer, educator, and poet,

captured so picturesquely the hope that is ours,

even in grief:

“Weep not, weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.
Heart-broken husband--weep no more;
Grief-stricken son--weep no more;
Left-lonesome daughter --weep no more;
She’s only just gone home.
Day before yesterday morning,
God was looking down from his great, high heaven,
Looking down on all his children,
And his eye fell on Sister Caroline,
Tossing on her bed of pain.
And God's big heart was touched with pity,
With the everlasting pity.

And God sat back on his throne,
And he commanded that tall, bright angel standing at his right hand:
Call me Death!
And that tall, bright angel cried in a voice
That broke like a clap of thunder:
Call Death!--Call Death!
And the echo sounded down the streets of heaven
Till it reached away back to that shadowy place,
Where Death waits with his pale, white horses.

And Death heard the summons,
And he leaped on his fastest horse,
Pale as a sheet in the moonlight.
Up the golden street Death galloped,
And the hooves of his horse struck fire from the gold,
But they didn't make no sound.
Up Death rode to the Great White Throne,
And waited for God's command.

And God said: Go down, Death, go down,
…and find Sister Caroline.
She's borne the burden and heat of the day,
She's labored long in my vineyard,
And she's tired--
She's weary--
Go down, Death, and bring her to me.

And Death didn't say a word,
But he loosed the reins on his pale, white horse,
And he clamped the spurs to his bloodless sides,
And out and down he rode,
Through heaven's pearly gates,
Past suns and moons and stars;
on Death rode,

and the foam from his horse was like a comet in the sky;
Leaving the lightning's flash behind;
Straight on down he came.

While we were watching round her bed,
She turned her eyes and looked away,
She saw what we couldn't see;
She saw Old Death.

She saw Old Death coming like a falling star.
But Death didn't frighten Sister Caroline;
He looked to her like a welcome friend.
And she whispered to us: I'm going home,
And she smiled and closed her eyes.

And Death took her up like a baby,
And she lay in his icy arms,
But she didn't feel no chill.
And Death began to ride again--
Up beyond the evening star,

Out beyond the morning star,
Into the glittering light of glory,
On to the Great White Throne.
And there he laid Sister Caroline
On the loving breast of Jesus.

And Jesus took his own hand and wiped away her tears,
And he smoothed the furrows from her face,
And the angels sang a little song,
And Jesus rocked her in his arms,
And kept a-saying: Take your rest,
Take your rest.

Weep not--weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.”

         (from God’s Trombones)

 

In Paradisum

“May angels lead you into Paradise.
At your coming
may martyrs receive you,
and may they lead you
into the Holy City, Jerusalem.
May the chorus of angels receive you,
and with Lazarus, who once was a pauper,
may you have eternal rest.”

In his letter to the Romans Paul wrote,

We do not live to ourselves,

and we do not die to ourselves.

If we live, we live to the Lord,

and if we die, we die to the Lord;

so then, whether we live or whether we die,

we are the Lord’s.

(Romans 14:7-9)

For Jesus Christ is the Resurrection and Life.

And all the saints who believed in Christ live

even though they died.

And all we saints who live and believe,

we will never die.

(John 11:25)

This promise is sure,

for it is the Word of the Lord.

AMEN