All Saint’s Day, a special occasion on the Christian calendar each November 1, provides believers with an opportunity to remember and celebrate those who have gone before us on the journey.
Christians can’t always predict when emotions over love and loss may strike, but it can often come while worshipping at church. This hit me last week on Reformation Sunday as we stood to sing the great hymn, “The Church’s One Foundation.”
Written by an Anglican priest named Samuel J. Stone, this soaring anthem of the faith was composed to confront some of the many challenges facing Christians in the mid 1800s.
“Though with a scornful wonder men see her sore oppressed,” Stone wrote in verse four. “By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed. Yet saints their watch are keeping, their cry goes up, ‘How long?’ And soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song!”
Some things never change.
But those weren’t the lyrics that grabbed me last week. Instead, it was the last verse:
Yet she on earth hath union with God the Three in One, and mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won. O happy ones and holy! Lord, give us grace that we like them, the meek and lowly, on high may dwell with thee.
It was the reference to “mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is one” that put a lump in my throat – and a smile on my face.
We don’t know for sure all that Stone was thinking about when he penned those words, but there’s a high probability he was referencing, among other truths, Hebrews 12:1:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
It’s a mystery whether those in Heaven can see what’s happening on earth. In popular culture, we often hear people say things like, “He’s looking down on you from above” or “She’s with us in Spirit.” But although there are a lot of unknowns regarding eternal life, many of us still feel a deep spiritual connection with our loved ones who have passed before us.
I inherited my mother’s chair – a chair that my mother inherited from her own mom. It’s been reupholstered several times and now sits in my home office. There are times when I’ll sit it in quietly, remembering the many times I found her there reading or watching television. I don’t need a chair to remind me of her, but tangible objects can spark a sweet memory unlike many other things.
Yet, union and fellowship with Jesus Christ is the sweetest of all.
It was the pastor and reformer John Calvin who said, “The mystical union subsisting between Christ and his members, should be matter of reflection not only when we sit at the Lord’s Table, but at all other times.”
Another reason why that last verse grabbed me relates to the reference of winning our rest. Both of my parents lived good, long lives. Their bodies wore out before their minds did, and they were both physically spent come their last days. On the last day of my mother’s life, she talked about Psalm 23 and how much she was looking forward to lying down in a green pasture on the other side. She was eager to win her rest – and it came just as the sun was going down on the day.
On this All Saint’s Day, let’s not be oblivious to the “great cloud of witnesses” that surround us as we run.
Image from Shutterstock.
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