The poignant lines, “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia… yet even at the grave we make our song,” resonate deeply when we confront our mortality. This past year, a routine physical exam served as a stark reminder of the delicate balance between life and death. What began as a standard check-up quickly turned into a sobering discussion about mortality, highlighting the subtle yet significant shift that age brings to our awareness of life’s fragility. This experience, though personal, mirrors a universal truth: death is an undeniable part of life, a reality often met with discomfort and avoidance in our daily conversations.
Yet, within the church, particularly on All Souls’ Day, we are called to confront this reality head-on. In fact, the church’s tradition of remembering the dead is woven into its very fabric, present in every act of worship and communion. The consecration of a church itself underscores this commitment, calling for the creation of space for worship, the building up of the living, and the remembrance of the departed. While we often gravitate towards discussions of life and spiritual growth, the topics of death, endings, and transitions hold a necessary, albeit challenging, place in our faith journey. These themes touch upon our vulnerabilities and fallibility, aspects of the human condition we often find unsettling.
However, as Christians, we are defined by our journey through the waters of baptism – a symbolic passage through death itself. Baptism in our tradition isn’t merely a cleansing ritual; it’s a profound act of immersion into death and resurrection. As we welcome new members into the Christian community, we proclaim, “In Baptism we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection.” These powerful words often fade into the background amidst the joy of welcoming new life, yet they hold a crucial theological truth: Christianity doesn’t promise an escape from death, but rather resurrection through it. Even in the face of life’s ultimate end, we are promised new life. Death is not the final word for those who believe in resurrection. This resurrection isn’t a mere escape route, but the hope of a transformed life, marked by the experiences and even the scars of our earthly journey.
Taking baptism seriously means acknowledging that we have already symbolically faced death and emerged into a life imbued with the promise of resurrection. This understanding fundamentally shifts our perspective on death. It transforms death from an ultimate fear into a transition already encountered in our spiritual initiation. This doesn’t diminish the pain of loss or the fear of mortality, emotions deeply intertwined with love and our human experience. Grief, heartbreak, and fear remain integral parts of loving in our mortal form. When we mourn, we hold both grief and gratitude in hand, a messy, sacred, and continuous process.
Death is inherently complex and defies easy articulation. Our language falters when confronted with the existential questions it raises about life’s meaning in its shadow. The Gospel of John offers profound insights into this paradox. In the All Souls’ Day Gospel reading, Jesus’ discourse following criticism for healing on the Sabbath delves into the very nature of life and death. Jesus challenges the perceived dichotomy between these states, asserting his divinity and presence from creation. John’s Gospel portrays Jesus not just as an elevated human, but as a divine being who dismantles the false separation between life and death. One can be physically alive yet spiritually dead, and conversely, one can find life even in physical death. Eternal life, according to John, isn’t confined to a post-grave existence. It’s not a static state, but a dynamic framework of faith: “Anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
The writer of John’s Gospel might question the modern medical perspective that focuses primarily on avoiding death, for fear often blinds us to what lies beyond. We often fixate on judgment, picturing pearly gates and divine assessment, rather than embracing the promise of eternal life through Jesus’ resurrection. Judgment, while comprehensible, overshadows the mystery of life emerging from death.
This mystery is central to our weekly worship. In the Eucharist, we are called to remember Christ’s love and to re-member – to reunite – the living and the dead. We reconnect with loved ones lost and reconcile the internal divisions within ourselves, the living and dying aspects of our own being. Eternal life isn’t about endless physical existence, but about living with the profound understanding – or faith, or even hope – that death is not the ultimate end. It’s not the conclusion of our story, nor the stories of those we cherish, or even those unknown to us. Ultimately, death is not the end because love transcends the grave.
On All Souls’ Day, we remember the dead at our altar, we re-member them into our lives. Our love and remembrance become part of our inheritance of eternal life, a promise given to us by Jesus. This inheritance is not about escaping death, but about embracing the unending, ever-present love of God that accompanies us through every stage of life and beyond, even into death itself. And in this journey, even “at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” This Alleluia Song, sung even in the face of death, becomes our testament to the enduring hope and love that defines the Christian faith.
References:
- The Commendation from the Book of Common Prayer: https://bcponline.org/PastoralOffices/BurialII.html#commendation
