Sermon by: Fr. Chris Lee, 10/29/2006.
All Saints Day.
Sermon to: Tokyo All Saints Church, 10/29/2006.
Sermon to: Church of Christ the King, Baltimore, MD, 11/5/2006.
http://www.ecctk.info/cktasvst/cksm0611.htm



It is with great joy that we bring to you greetings and love from the Church of Christ the King in Baltimore. We come to you supported by their prayers; and we bring their prayers for this church that holds a very special place in their hearts. We are glad to be here! Glad that we didn't lose our way as we journeyed the many miles to be with you. Five of us set out -- five have arrived and we didn't lose one on the way!

To celebrate the Feast of All Saints is to celebrate the victory of life over death and to remember all those faithful ones who have gone before us and who paved the way for us to be where we are today. William Shakespeare wrote in 'Romeo and Juliet' that " parting is such sweet sorrow " and we know that when we are parted from someone we love, then they and their love assume very significant value. That's the way it is! In ordinary, every day concerns, it is also a known fact that if we lose anything, it assumes an exaggerated value. Indeed, it seems more important than the other things we possess. For instance, there was an occasion when I broke my watch, and suddenly I discovered I was completely lost without it. Travel, visiting, just about everything became almost impossible; and the value and necessity of a watch for me, became all-important. Or again, if you lose the key to your house -- suddenly that key becomes the most important thing you own. Without it you are cut off from everything in the house -- and it feels as if you will not be able to live without it. We never know what we have until we lose it!

How true that it at a much more serious and deeper level for many of us, especially when we have lost through death loved ones and friends, and we have the hard task of learning to live without them. Somehow everything is changed by their death -- nothing will ever be quite the same again -- tomorrow will never be like yesterday. Yet a question arises when we express our sadness. For whom are we sorry? For the loved ones left? For ourselves? Of course! -- but NOT -- not ever for the one who has stepped on into their new life, and become one of the saints in glory. You and I are the 'resurrection people' and all that we believe as Christians emerges through what we say at the time of someone's death. We do not believe that they are dead and done with -- we believe that they have met the glorious climax of all that they lived for -- they are alive with their God -- they have entered His kingdom. Now the non-Christian may have difficulty with this -- but the Christian never can. I agree that Christian teaching about life after death can sometimes sound like a mindless optimism that refuses to face reality. We cannot bear to think of life without the people we love, and we are sure that they cannot manage without us, so we simply invent a comforting story that allows us to believe that, even after death, we can still be together.

But actually, the Christian belief in life after death is not so much based on what we would like to believe about ourselves, but on what we know to be true about God. It is the love, power and sheer vitality of God that underpins our belief in life after death. All that Jesus means and all that Easter means is wrapped up in our realization that death is nothing more than a second, a step -- a triumphant, glorious step into new life. If we do not hold onto that belief – if we do not root our very Christianity in that truth -- then we are left with nothing. Death is an opportunity to avoid selfishness and self-centeredness and, as Christians, to be glad and to celebrate that all that we believe as Christ's people has now come true for the one we love but see no longer.

Think back to the gospel story this morning of Lazarus -- for he became part of the cycle of death-to-life -- called from the tomb into the world of the living. What was it Jesus said, "He who loses his life will save it?" And again: "a grain of what must die in the ground before it puts forth new shoots." Over and over again we are reminded that the art of dying is bound up with the art of living.

Here in All Saints Tokyo, you are each part of the process; a process that we share in at Christ the King Church, Baltimore, since Mrs. Nancy Murdock and the late Mr. Earl Hagan made the first visit from our parish to your parish in 1990. What you celebrate today is the life that you have now that links you to all those who have gone before. Times may be difficult, numbers may be small, ages may be well-advanced, the church may be under great pressure from what seems to be an unbelieving world; BUT we too often forget that we are not alone. Too often we forget that we are here today because of the saints who have gone before. Some we can name, most remain unknown but still they are part of the great company that surrounds us: 'Angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.' They have their message for us on this day of celebration -- 'For their to be life there first has to be death.'

Because of the Lazarus story it is hard not to envy Jesus his power to bring his friend back to life. How we have longed to do the same for someone we love. But Jesus tells Mary in the story that he is doing this so that she -- and all the watching crowd -- 'would see the glory of God' This glory is the very nature of God, that God is life and that nothing, not even death itself, can separate us from the overwhelming life of God.

What was it Jesus said? `He who loses his life will save it' and again, `a grain of wheat must die in the ground before it puts forth new shoots.' Over and over again we are reminded that the art of dying is bound up with the art of living.

The Feast of All Saints is a timely reminder that the saints who have gone before now enable us to live. They have paved the way so that the Church can stand as a beacon for Christ -- as a place of hope and love -- as a place from which the gospel is carried to a waiting world.

What, then, is expected of you and me? We are expected to be the Jesus people -- to share with him the journey that he made from Lazarus to the Cross and on to the empty tomb. We are expected to carry what we know and what we believe to any who will listen – we are called to show to the world that for there to be life there first has to be death. That is the message of the empty tomb and it is the message that Jesus gives to us today.

He said: Those who believe in me, even 'though they die, will live.