This morning our parish priest leads a commemoration there of those who died in war for our country in which the war dead of the world today will be much in mind. Palestine and Israel with Ukraine, so much in the news, then, currently less newsworthy but with thousands of dead in the last year: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
In his Rector’s letter this week Fr Edward quoted from our first reading 'Wisdom is radiant and unfading, and she is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her.' (Wisdom 6.12) going on to pray that the nations might pursue Holy Wisdom in their endeavours, working to bring peace, justice and reconciliation to the world. All week I’ve been wrestling with the other two readings from 1 Thessalonians on death and Matthew 25 on the wise and foolish bridesmaids linked to the Wisdom passage. I thought of telling my story of waiting 45 minutes for a bride up at Highbrook on a chilly December afternoon, or that of our family’s getting ready for son James’ marriage in April at Horsted Keynes - but, after reflection, I decided I’d just comment on the Gospel and head for depth study of the 1 Thessalonians which fits Remembrance Sunday.
Where are the dead? What has become of them? Will we see them again?
The questions folk at Thessalonica put to Paul are just as important today - as is his answer. This passage has two parts, the second optional in the universal lectionary but compulsory in the Church of England. Let’s listen again to the first section, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14: ‘We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died’.
Grief for Christians is not without hope. Our faith is built on a revelation well founded in history - the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Alexander Schmemann writes of this: ‘The only meaningful thing in life is what conquers death, and not “what” but “who” - Christ. There is undoubtedly only one joy: to know him and share him with each other’ (unquote). We gather every Sunday, the Lord’s day, as the Lord’s people, around the Lord’s table to celebrate that Jesus died and rose again. That celebration is linked to knowing and sharing Jesus and professing faith in the everlasting love of God. This takes the sting out of grief at the passing of those we love.
Let’s read on in the second reading from verses 15 to 18: ‘For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words’ (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18). That second to last sentence says all - ‘we will be with the Lord forever’.
Its difficult imagery, though, that of the Lord descending from above and the dead coming up from the earth within a three decker universe. In the 21st century we see beyond a three-decker universe to what has been called a multiverse with many dimensions but this does not contradict the Christian Creed. We just have new symbols of our passing into eternity. One such symbol is the saving of the file of our life into the computer memory of God. That salvation after death, the ultimate hope of Christians, is, according to scripture, Christ-focussed and corporate.
On Remembrance Sunday as poppies are laid on the ground we affirm that faith founded upon our risen Lord who helps us see through death to ‘the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting’.
Where are the dead? What has become of them? Will we see them again?
It is Christian faith that at the moment of death the soul is judged by God to pass toward one of two ultimate destinations, bliss or loss, heaven or hell. In that passage the prayer of the Church surrounds and helps all those souls the Christian community commends to God who will welcome help, the origin of the maligned term purgatory.
God wishes nothing or no one to be lost from the sight of his holiness.
We imagine the moment of death, however painful or merciful physically, will be painful spiritually for most of us as we come to see God, turning our eyes away at his loving, holy glance. His invitation to look him in the eyes, like that of any good parent chastising his child, will be painful on account of our unrepented sins. Purgatory can be thought of, some theologians hold, as just momentary. A moment of pain as holiness meets the unrepentant sin within us, then the soul passing on to await the next stage of cosmic history.
Those who die without sin face God, as if in heaven, and begin to see him face to face, but heaven is not yet heaven until that vision is shared bodily in the company of all the saints.
Those without love continue their self-chosen loneliness into hell, which God permits as he permits free will, though the choice to turn our backs on him forever is not God’s will but something made out of human perversity.
The Christian hope is consummated by the return of Jesus Christ ‘who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead’. That final judgement will complete our individual judgement at the moment of death. Today’s second reading indicates the general judgement as bringing humanity of past ages to bodily resurrection to greet Christ’s return and be clothed afresh with the body, to make their heaven fully heaven, or their hell fully hell, in the life of the world to come.
In that world the faithful departed will continue in a salvation that is personal, practical, purposeful and permanent. We will continue to know personally, only unveiled, the one who so knows and loves us. We will experience the practical benefit of our sins being cast away from us. We will be fully taken into the purpose of God and with permanence. The pains we've suffered will be lost in celestial praise. Such is salvation - and here is its anticipation as the Lord’s people gather around the Lord’s table. Happy are those who are called to his supper, to receive in Bread and Wine the pledge of future glory! God open our eyes more fully, and the spiritual eyes of those who have died, to see death vanquished through a Crucified Saviour who opens his arms to us and to them and to all eager to embrace and be embraced by everlasting love in the company of the saints!
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