Perhaps it is only in my mind, but there seems to be a moment each autumn when the temperature really changes; I mean it drastically changes and signals the approach of winter.  This week was that moment for me.  Temperatures reached a low that brought a wood-burning fire, and it is harder and harder for me to get out of bed when it is dark and cold outside and I am nestled in warmly.  I was very grateful that Trunk or Treat had such good weather, but now we are officially into the cooler temperatures.  

It is when the leaves are falling and the world around us begins its annual death in order to be reborn in the spring, and Christians also turn the eyes of our hearts to such matters.  This week, albeit it spread out across two weekends, is our All Saints Day and associated holidays.  

The evening before All Saints, or All Hallow’s Eve, was traditionally spent in vigil preparing for the major feast day to come.  Over the centuries, and as other cultures changed and influenced each other, the day has become known as a day of frivolity, where we dress up and in some ways pretend, I think, that death is far far away and is something we can deny and ignore.  We may even, depending on the tradition, mock death and try to scare it and other evils away by dressing in scary costumes. There is a youthfulness to the evening that in some ways believes death cannot touch it.  
However, we know that death does come near eventually.  It cannot be scared away, controlled, or even predicted.  In what I feel is an ancient grief process, we move from denial of death to honoring the dead.  Once All Hallow’s Eve is concluded, we move into All Hallows Day, or All Saints Day, and we celebrate those amazing examples of the Christian faith and life who have lived and died before us.  At St. Michael’s, we celebrate St. Vincent, whose relic resides in our altar.  These saints are not perfect, but they have provided great examples of what it means to be a Christian in some of the toughest times.  They form the Great Cloud of Witnesses that cheer us on and lift us up as we run our race.  

And finally, beyond the denial and the celebration of Saints we never knew, death comes closer.  On All Souls Day, the Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed, we remember those that we knew who have helped form us along our way, and who have died and gone on to be with God.  Here it becomes real.  However, our faith does not leave us there.  While the Christian faith does not deny death and its reality, it denies death’s finality.  The final and last step for a person of faith is to believe that death is very much real, and a doorway to the next life in Christ.  God has built a bridge across the chasm.  God has made a door where once there was a dead end.  God has freed us to live life fully knowing that we have nothing to finally fear; we have nothing to scare away or from which to run.  Our faith reminds us that we are free to live fully and even recklessly after the example set in Jesus Christ, even in the face of our mortality.  

As the trees begin their annual death and rebirth, I pray that you remember God has the same in mind for you.  We are all a part of God’s much bigger hope and plan for this creation, and God loves you beyond description.  Loves you so much that not even death can stop it.  

Blessings to you, and prayers as we walk through this All Saints Triduum together again this year.  This Sunday morning, we will celebrate All Saints.  And Sunday evening, celebrate All Souls with a Requiem.  

See you in church, 
Jesse+