All Faithful Departed: November 2

Wisdom 3: 1-9

Probably written in and for the large Jewish community in the intellectual capital of Alexandria just a few decades before the life of Jesus, The Wisdom of Solomon challenges the beliefs of the most venerable cultures of the ancient world, Greece and Egypt. In this excerpt, the writer addresses the universal human question of our own mortality. The Jewish writer declares clearly and forcefully that “the souls of he righteous,” that is “those who trust in him will understand truth, and the faithful will abide with him in love,” will also remain in relationship with God after death. To those who do not understand or appreciate this relationship with God, it appears that those who die seem to be “going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace.” Even after death, their memory/influence (“sparks”) will persist among the living, which is yet another kind of immortality.

Psalm 130

The psalmist compares his fear of drowning, a common trope in Hebrew scriptures, to dying. He cries out to God for help because of his helpless feeling of slipping into the grave. Then he recalls the nature of God, which is not to keep score of our failures, but to forgive. His personal experience of God’s forgiveness gives him a reasonable expectation of rescue. God’s “love” is the most powerful thing about God! Therefore, all should ask for God’s rescue, because that is our best “hope.”

I Thessalonians 4: 13-18

Paul, too, addresses the universal human reality of our own mortality, but now after his life-changing encounter with the Risen Lord. Paul contrasts the expectations of those “in Christ” with those “who have no hope.” Paul has no doubt that Jesus will soon “descend from heaven….” Therefore, believers who are alive now will not even experience death. They will be “caught up in the clouds together to meet the Lord in the air….”

John 5: 24-27

The context of this short excerpt from the Gospel of John is the accusation by the religious authorities to the authenticity of Jesus because he “works” on the Sabbath. The work Jesus has been doing is giving good news to the desperate, healing the sick and offering hope to the desolate. But Jesus responds that what he does is consistent with what the Father does, who sustains life even on the Sabbath– humans die and humans are born even on the Sabbath. Life persists! Jesus declares that the work of the Son of God “will live.” The power of life, which originated in the Father, is “granted” to the Son.

These readings and gospel appointed for All Souls arose of of confrontations with– to use the Modern word– nihilism, in the religions and philosophies of the ancient world.

Over many years, a large Jewish community grew in an intellectual center of Greek culture in the city named after Alexander the Great. The book of Wisdom was written to reinforce the basics of Jewish belief for Jews living there in the first century B.C.

Paul writes to a fledgling community of followers of Jesus in Thessalonica, the largest city and capital of Macedonia, (which was named after a sister of Alexander).

The gospel attributed to John sustains a dialogue with First Century Judaism on critical issues between and outside the relationships between these siblings.

The readings, psalm and gospel, each in their distinctive ways, addresses the universal experience of personal mortality. Each asserts a counter-argument to “nihilism.”

Katherine Tanner entitles the final chapter of her important book, Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology, “The End.” She methodically challenges the “modern-scientific” understanding of human existence, which inevitably leads to nihilism. She reviews various Christian responses to nihilism throughout history and then concentrates on the Biblical response. Those who chose to be enveloped in “eternal life” now,” she asserts, have a reasonable hope of remaining in that power, even after death.

Tanner writes:

At the most fundamental level, eternal life is ours now in union with Christ or in the future.” This “indwelling of God in us” alters how we see ourselves and others and all life-affirming, life-giving, life-perpetuating values and activity. Citing the same excerpt as today’s ‘appointed Gospel, she concludes, “Eternal life is present reality….” p 111 ff

In the Biblical understanding, eternal life is not a temporal reality that begins when we die, it is a belief– THE belief– the persistence of human life is the preeminent value, from Creation through whatever ending there might be to measured time, from each person’s birth to each person’s death. This Biblical persistence is so strong it allows, even encourages, a “reasonable and holy hope” that life persists after death.