All Saints Day, Cycle B
John 11:32-44
The message of this text is that the Johannine Jesus has the power of God to raise from the dead a beloved friend who had been dead for four days and already was decomposing! This is a very powerful message that we treasure, since we fully realize that we too will die and decompose as Lazarus was said to have been decomposing in this account. What is proclaimed here in John 11:32-44 is not merely a resuscitation; it is fully a resurrection of the body. This proclamation is reassuring for us, as we receive it by faith, so that we do not think that only Jesus (who was and is obviously far superior to us) was or will be raised from the dead. This account is an indication that other people, ordinary people like ourselves, who love Jesus and are loved by him will be raised from the dead.
Since the account is a theological message, a message that is an expression of faith, to be received by faith, we should not ask of it questions about Lazarus’ experiences during the four day interval, what he did with his life after Jesus had raised him back to life, or whether he died at a later date like everyone else. Neither should we speculate about these things, nor should we try to provide answers to such questions within our proclamation of this text. It is enough (and best) for us to proclaim the message of this text and to state that we believe the message that God will raise us also from the dead, for that is the message that we believe and that is the message that has made Christianity what it is.
Revelation 21:1-6a
In the highly symbolic language of apocalyptic eschatology, this text is a beautiful proclamation of our Christian hope. As we, like the writer of Revelation 21:1-6a and the people for whom this text was written, grow weary, suffer great pain and loss, we, like them, long for a time and a place where there will be no more pain and grief, where there will be no more death. This is what we hope for the “saints” who have died, and this is what we hope for ourselves. Every day, but most of all on All Saints’ Day, we must proclaim this message of Christian hope. It is for this that we are called.
Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9
This text is an expression of faith that those who have died are in the hands of God and at peace. God watches over them with grace and mercy. Although this expression of faith is made within the context of the Greek concept of the immortality of the soul, it can be brought together, as it has often been done, with our Christian concept of the resurrection of the body and of life everlasting within the “Body of Christ” that has no limits.
Isaiah 25:6-9
Although there is nothing specifically about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as the Christ in this text from the Isaiah traditions, the belief expressed here that God will “swallow up death forever,” that the Lord our God will “wipe away tears from all faces,” and that we should “be glad and rejoice in the salvation that God provides” can not only be shared with our Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Baha’I friends, and with other theists; it can and also should be brought into our Christian expressions of faith, especially during our All Saints’ Day celebrations.
Psalm 24
Within the context of our Christian observance of All Saints’ Day, the saints redeemed by God in Christ are, in the words of this Israelite psalm, those who with “clean hands and a pure heart” are receiving the blessing of the Lord. What the Israelite psalmist required for satisfactory worship of God in this world is basically what we as Christians anticipate will be the condition of those who in the presence of God worship God in the world that is to come.
