O eternal Lord God, who holdest all souls in life: Give, we beseech thee, to thy whole Church in paradise and on earth thy light and thy peace; and grant that we, following the good examples of those who have served thee here and are now at rest, may at the last enter with them into thine unending joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
There are two general ways of dealing with the reality of death. The first is what we might call the sentimental approach. Here, we essentially say “Death isn’t that bad” in an effort to minimize its impact You’ve heard people say things like “God must have needed another angel” or “She’s in a better place now.” These sorts of sentimental approaches to death treat death a mere speedbump on the way to the Resurrection. The problem is that this sentimental approach to death doesn’t leave any room for grief. If our loved one really is in a better place and is in joy and felicity with God, then our grief can seem to be unfounded and selfish. Nor does the minimizing of death comport with our experience. Death is real, and it is painful, scary, and unsettling. To grieve the loss of our dearly departed is not unchristian, rather our grief is a testament to the power of love. When faced with the darkness of death, it does no good to pretend that the darkness doesn’t exist.
The other way that death is handled is in a nihilistic way. If the sentimental approach says “It’s not so bad,” then nihilism says “It’s worse than you thought.” This approach puts no stock in anything like an afterlife or the continuation of the person after death. Rather, in this view, there is this life and nothing more. Grief from the point of view of nihilism becomes nothing more than our refusal to accept the facts – he is gone and nothing can change that. Grief becomes akin to shaking your fist at the cloud because it’s raining – it doesn’t change anything and just makes you look silly. As a priest who has presided at many funerals, I can tell you that family members really do request that we sing Frank Sinatra’s “I Did it My Way” at their loved one’s funeral. That’s the epitome of this nihilistic approach to death – you have one life to live, so you better make it worth it. But this, like the sentimental approach to death, is unchristian and unhelpful.
And so, as it often does, our Christian faith provides a third option to us, that of Resurrection. In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes “For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: Death has been swallowed up in victory.” This Christian view of death isn’t sentimental – death is real, as the process of the perishable body putting on imperishability is a rift. But this rift is not permanent or devoid of hope, as it is for the nihilist. And so grief becomes not only healthy, but holy. Grief is the other side of the coin to love. When you deeply love someone and their presence turns into absence, indeed, something is missing. And if this were completely natural and the way God intended it, then we wouldn’t have a Resurrection. The Resurrection is only necessary if death is something that God wishes to defeat.
Indeed, we are gathered here today because death has been defeated. But this victory comes at a cost. Just as in war, real damage is done. Yesterday, we celebrated the Feast of All Saints, and there was a triumphant feel to that liturgy. We celebrated the saints of the church with a festal high Mass. But today is different. All Souls is full of raw emotions because we’re not thinking of people that we never knew who lived long ago. Thinking of people like St. Aidan or St. Hilda doesn’t make me very emotional. But when I think of my sister who died before I was born, or my grandmother, or the many parishioners that I’ve had the honor of burying, well, I feel the heaviness of grief.
Both the nihilist and the sentimentalist doesn’t know what to do with grief. But we know that is a holy emotion. Our grief sits between our missing our loved ones and our hope for God’s redemption and restoration of all things. Hope is not wishful thinking, it is not an unexamined belief. Rather, hope in the Resurrection is grounded in our trust in what Christ has done and is still doing. Our hope is founded in our trust that, in the words of the Song of Songs, “Love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” Death is real, but love is more enduring. Separation from our loved ones is painful, but reconciliation will come.
Oh, but how we wish it were otherwise. Martha speaks for us all when she says “Lord, if you had been here, my loved one would not have died.” And she does have hope that Lazarus will rise again on the last day, but Jesus does not comfort her by saying that “One day, this will be made better.” Instead, he says “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” The Resurrection spills over into our lives, into our deaths, and catches them up in the loving grace of God.
Resurrection is not about life after death, that’s a false divide. Resurrection is bigger than life and death. This is why this liturgy that we are taking part in is so holy. The sentimental and the nihilistic forces of our culture don’t know what to do with grief because they are not rooted in the Resurrection. But the Resurrection is able to speak hope in the midst of brokenness. As St. Paul put it, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not given to despair.” Death does create in us a sense of confusion, of loss, of grief, to deny this is simply willful ignorance. But death does not render us hopeless. Our hope is anchored by the Resurrection even as we are tossed about the waves of grief. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, they refer to this as the “bright sadness.” Grief is not erased, nor is hope forgotten.
In the earliest days of the Church, the faithful gathered to celebrate the Eucharist at the tombs of martyrs. It’s completely natural for us to mark the loss of our loved ones, but our culture doesn’t do it. We treat death in such a sanitized way. The undertaker undertakes all the things that a family used to do – preparing a loved one for burial, digging the grave, and tending the tombstone. The Mexican tradition of El Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is a wonderful tradition because it gives families the chance to mourn and to remember their loved ones. There is nothing natural or helpful about the way most Americans deal with death. We have a funeral and then we are left to grieve on our own. We don’t talk about death, rather we have a process of steps that we’re supposed to go through in order to “get over” our loss. But that’s ridiculous. You never get over a loved one.
This is why All Souls is such an important day in the life of the Church, and I wish it were more widely observed. It gives us a chance to remember our loved us because we still love them. And we are given hope anew as we trust that they are in God’s merciful care and keeping. And though it is true of every single celebration of the Holy Eucharist, it is such a blessing to celebrate this Eucharist tonight with the special intention of remembering our dearly departed with a sense of bright sadness, as that is what the Eucharist itself proclaims in emphasizing both the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The Eucharist is the place that we are the closest to our loved ones who have died. If you want to be near your loved ones, you do not go to a graveyard, you do not go to a photo that you have hanging in your house, you do not go into your memories; no, you go to the altar. In this sacred meal, we partake of the victory banquet of Christ the Lamb. It is the meal that all those who have died in Christ feast at, and by grace and with thanksgiving, we are given to participate in this meal. The bonds of love are never severed and the Eucharist proclaims and celebrates this mystic sweet communion.
As we remember our loved ones on this All Souls’ Day, we do so not suffering as those without hope, but we do so with a sense of bright sadness. The Resurrection is a reality not reserved for the other side of the grave, it is the graciousness of God that transcends space and time, even life and death. By God’s mercy, in this Holy Eucharist, we commune with all those whom we love but see no longer. So let us keep the feast, Alleluia!
