All Saints’ Day

Calling All Saints

Posted on by Betsy

Saints. They can be canonized heroes of our faith, plaster statues in a cathedral, a football team in New Orleans, or the person sitting next to you.

We usually balk at the notion that every day folks are saints, and the thought that we ourselves fall into that category is especially squirm-worthy. Comparing ourselves with the likes of the Apostle Paul, Mother Teresa, and Gabriel the Archangel is uncomfortable at best, unless you have a really, really big ego. Most Protestant denominations don’t have saints like our Catholic brothers and sisters do. Our traditions don’t include canonization, but we do have saints of the ordinary variety.

You and me.

All Saints’ Day is a way of marking the ordinariness of extraordinary people of faith. Many churches observe this on the first Sunday of November. Names of those who have died in the last year are read, and a candle is lit for each. Sometimes a bell is tolled as well. It is a sacred and solemn day of remembrance and thanksgiving for the faithfulness of these folks.

The phrase saints appears in the Bible over 60 times. In Colossians 10, Paul assures us that all of us are saints:

Colossians 1:10-14 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

10 So that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins

The root of the word saint comes from the word sanctified. To be sanctified is to be “set apart for holy use.” We have been called out of the world to be the reflection of Christ to a world that doesn’t know him but needs him desperately.

Many years ago, I traveled to Israel. Most of the holy sites are maintained by different churches: Roman Catholic, Coptic, Greek Orthodox, Franciscans, etc. As an American Methodist, I was struck by all of the plaster statues and busts of saints I knew nothing about. It was an interesting distraction from the holy site itself.

When I got home, I reflected on our Protestant understanding of saints as ordinary people, and I sadly realized that in many instances, I have been and continue to be a plaster saint. How about you? Do you ever feel that way … That if people knew what was really going on inside of you, they surely would feel differently about you?

The scriptures may affirm us as saints with the rest of the members of the household of God, but in so many ways, our usefulness as those set apart for holy use only runs skin deep. I may appear somewhat saintly on the outside, but the plaster is covering who I really am and hiding my less-than-sanctified-self from the world.

In our ordinariness, we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Then we put on a plaster cast and show a holiness to the world that doesn’t really speak to who we are inside. As they say, actions speak louder than words, and people can easily see past the mask. And so can God.

On this All Saints’ Day, let us spend a moment meditating on that. Do you mirror the image of God in everything you say, do, think, and post? Or is your sainthood just a plaster façade, hiding an inner self you don’t want others to see? Let us mark this day with self-examination, confession, repentance, and change.

As saints, we are called to work hard in every way to do the right thing and endure in good works no matter the cost. We are instructed to grow in our knowledge of God, so keep doing your daily devotionals, people! Thank you for reading! Saints endeavor to live a life worthy of God, not just show up to church occasionally so we can check that box.

You see, the whole point of sainthood is not to be perfect, but to be redeemed, forgiven, and strengthened by the Holy Spirit to live a life that reflects our faith. And someday, when the saints go marching in, oh Lord, let us be in that number!

Stone Saints by Alan Janesch

Laughing at Death

Posted on by Betsy

The history of Halloween is interesting. It began as a Celtic practice called Samhain, which was held at the end of the harvest season, when late fall turns into frozen winter and the death of all the earth’s growing things was imminent. The Celts believed that on the day of Samhain, the veil between the living and the dead was lifted, and the dead came back and walked the earth. So the people dressed in costumes and lit bonfires to confuse the ghosts and ward off the evil spirits and the walking dead among them. Samhain was held on October 31st.

All Saints’ Day, a festival for remembering the saints, was set by Pope Gregory III on November 1st in order to co-opt this pagan tradition and connect it to a Christian practice. Samhain thus became known as All Hallows’ Eve, which we now call Halloween. In many ways, the two traditions are related. All Saints’ Day recognizes the work of the faithful who have died in the previous year and have gone on to experience God’s glorious eternity. Samhain was a day when people actively defied death, laughing at the very notion of it.

As it should be.

Nobody wants to die. We are designed by God to seek life, preserve life, protect life, and frankly, we spend most of our days trying to make the best of this life that we’ve been given. So while we don’t look forward to dying, we also can live our lives as those who are prepared to die, because living or dying, our life is with the Lord. God designed us for life, but death is a part of God’s design as well. Because of the resurrection of Jesus and his promise to take us to the place where he went upon his death, we can live in such a way that, while we don’t seek death, we don’t dread it either. We can even put on a Buzz Lightyear mask or Mickey ears and laugh at death on All Hallow’s Eve, because in the end, death has no lasting power over us:

1 Corinthians 15

51-57 But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again.

At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:

Death swallowed by triumphant Life!

Who got the last word, oh, Death?

Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?

I know a man who is not afraid of death, despite his ongoing battle with brain cancer. He has sought treatments, has had surgery, and has received miracles of love, healing, and friendships from the Lord. A new tumor has stabilized, and the original tumor bed has another tumor growing in it. This will be dealt with through prayer, positivity, medical treatments, and the power of God. In the meantime, guess what this man did last month? He offered to lead a men’s Bible study and support group this year. That, my friends, is laughing at death. Who gets the last word? Jesus. Always Jesus. We ain’t afraid of no ghosts.

58 With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.

So mote it be.

Hatteras Campfire by Melissa Herring