Object Permanence - All Saints' Day

I am so in love with the Eleanor Daley piece “In Remembrance,” that our choir sang between the lessons just a few minutes ago. I have listened to it more times than I can count this week. It’s part of her requiem mass, which is unlike most other requiem masses. She pulls texts from a variety of places throughout the tradition, including, in this case, “Immortality,” a poem by Clare Harner. I’m struck not only by the music but by the lyrics, which I’ve pondered over and over: “do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there, I do not sleep.”

These words remind me of so many of the graveside funerals and committals I’ve attended over the years. It’s a peculiar experience to gather with families and friends to watch a coffin or urn be lowered into the ground or columbarium wall. If I’m honest, Daley’s piece also reminds me of my late mother who is interred in a lovely columbarium, which I often feel guilty about not visiting often enough.

And then my imagination wanders to those fabulous women who got up early on the morning after the crucifixion to go together and tend to Jesus’ tomb. In the midst of their own grief, perhaps tearfully, they prepare to anoint his grave, not knowing that the plot of earth they’ve arrived at is actually empty.

It’s comical, really, to picture those women gazing at an empty tomb while Christ himself goes about his business elsewhere. It’s the same kind of uncanny humor we adults experience when we play Peek-a-Boo with a baby. Babies (and also my dog Abel) struggle with object permanence. When something disappears from view, they understand it to be gone forever. When an adult makes the object reappear, it is magical and delightful and hilarious.

Alternatively, when a person dies, they are seemingly gone from our lives forever, and there is no humor in that sad circumstance. But of course, the empty tomb changes that. The very crux of our faith is that the empty tomb changes everything. And our task as people of faith is to overcome our struggle with spiritual object permanence. To that end, the Holy Spirit has guided the Church to the celebration of the feast of All Saints.

All Saints’ Day is one of those special and intimate times in the church year when the veil between this world and the heavenly places is lifted temporarily, and we get a magnificent glimpse of the Kingdom of God. We sense the nearness of the communion of all the saints, the great cloud of witnesses, and most especially those we know and love but see no longer. We embody the joining together of heaven and earth in God’s grand plan for the salvation of the world.

Tonight, our worship, our scripture, our music, and our very community all cry out with joy that there is no permanent division between us and our dead. The whole body of the faithful is with us always just as Christ is with us always, even when we cannot see them. I was reassured of this truth earlier this week as I put the finishing touches on the banners that we carried in this evening. I flew through most of the banners without a snag, but when I laid Carol Lou’s banner on my sewing machine, the thread caught and stuck. I should not have been surprised.

Not only does the All Saints liturgy remind us that Christ is near to us now, it also commends to us the promise that one day, the veil will be lifted once and for all, and we will see the Kingdom in the fullness of its glory. The Wisdom of Solomon declares that “in the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace.”

In John’s Gospel, Jesus steadies Martha: “did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” And in the Revelation to John, “the one who was seated on the throne said ‘see, I am making all things new.’” Although our vision of God’s glory may be shrouded for now, tonight we are assured that it will not always be so.

All Saints’ Day is not the only time we are granted such hope. All year long our church calendar celebrates saints who did not stand at the tomb and weep but went about their lives proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom and relishing in the nearness of Christ. This is our calling, as well. As we grow and mature in our faith, we too come to understand that sadness and pain, and even death itself is not permanent, but merely the hands over a baby’s eyes that will soon be pulled away to reveal magic, delight, and even laughter.

I know that as we mourn those whose names we will hear in just a few moments, and as we approach the coming season in all its complexities, we will, at times, find ourselves head down, unable to look away from the graves that surround us on all sides. It is my hope that together we might be able to call to mind our sweet choir singing Eleanor Daley’s powerful anthem, and rest easy in her lyrics: “do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there, I do not sleep. Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there, I did not die.” Amen.