Revelation 7:9-10; 13-17; November 1, 2026; All Saints Day
Did you all remember to turn back your clocks? I assume you did as, well, here you are.
I imagine though if it were possible to turn our clocks all the way back… to days, months, and years before… many of us would.
Flipping the hourglass over so to visit our friends and family who left our lives for the flickering light of our memories.
…
A couple of weeks ago a phone call came in.
I say it “came in” because I didn’t in fact answer it. It’s not that I didn’t answer it because I didn’t want to, it’s that I didn’t answer it because I didn’t hear it until I did. That is, until I heard the notification that I had missed it.
Ever experience this and have the sinking feeling that follows? When you missed a call from someone who you’re not sure why they called you in the first place?
Perhaps it happened when your boss called you unexpectedly. Or your child’s school. Or a long-distance friend. But for me, it happened most recently when I missed a call from Nancy, my stepmom.
You see, Nancy rarely calls me. Not that there’s a problem between us; we talk of course. But generally, not out of the blue, during the middle of the week, at a random time in the morning.
So that missed notification – that red font staring back at me, Nancy’s Cell — was like a siren for some unforeseen tragedy. And while my first impulse was to call her back immediately, I must confess it took a couple minutes, as I tried to quiet the simmering fear that something must have happened to my dad.
I mean, why else would she be calling, I thought? Maybe he fell. Maybe there was an accident on the tennis court. My mind raced.
Why do our minds so often race to the worst outcome?
Probably because we’ve all been there before and heard the worst when we got the call.
Now thankfully for me, at least on this occasion, Nancy’s call was just a butt-dial. Ah, yes the butt dial, ironically so often the cause of great relief!
But for you and so many others, as well as previously for me, it wasn’t a butt-dial but a real call that indeed brought the worst. That brought our worlds crashing down.
That call, that so often comes out of the blue, in the middle of the week, at a random time in the morning, rips open a space in time. And in those first initial liminal seconds, in between confusion and registry, your heart seemingly skips a beat and hangs in the balance.
And that suspension in time is so real, isn’t it?
You can literally hear your heart beat.
But in that silence, we remember…or, we try to, don’t we?
That our gospel beats in the rhythm of hope.
And so, we try to believe that the call won’t be the last, but only the next, before we ourselves are called back home by God to see our loved ones again. Who are not dead, but alive, having joined the great multitude that no one can count!
Indeed, that Heavenly choir where Nora is still directing. Where Ed is still teaching. Where Don is still gardening. And where Ellen and Nancy are still singing. Where look, crossing over the bridge, is now Martha. Free from infection. Free from pain. Running into the arms of Rich her beloved, and together they are dancing again.
For alongside our great list of friends and family, even the furriest of friends who became family (Lexi, Precious, Brody, and Fraggle – God bless those names!), we believe Jesus is with us. That Jesus is with them.
For we are promised that he will leave us not as orphans, nor hanging in the balance, nor in the flickering light of memory, but will bring us into the limitless glow of his grace.
Forever turning our clocks forward such that they spring to life in the expanse of the eternal
—
My friends, the hymn we are about to sing is none other than one of my favorites. And it should be one of yours too. It is called “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need.”
It’s beautiful in every shape and way, and I will entertain no opinions to the contrary, for it gets All Saints Day right. Heck, it gets every day right!
And it was written by none other than Isaac Watts, who you all know, even if you don’t know. You know what I mean?
No?
Well, what I mean is that Isaac Watts wrote fourteen of our hymns in our hymnal. Hymns you love and remember like: “I praise my maker” // “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” // “Joy to the World” // “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past”
This past week I read an interesting article about him which said: “Isaac’s love of beauty in the written word caused him to cringe at the ugly and unpolished versions of the Psalms sung in the churches of his time. [He cringed at them!] In fact, he complained to his father that they were not befitting the solemn dignity and beauty of the worship service and were an unfit offering to God. When his father charged him to either stop complaining or write something better, Watts accepted the challenge” and in so doing, pumped out over 750 hymns in total! Can you imagine? Seven hundred and fifty!
But what’s more impressive, is that he somehow accomplished this despite a life full of misery… Jaundice, neuralgia, illness after illness. And yet, he composed some of the most beautiful and hopeful hymns the Church has ever known!
My friends, is this not the gospel!? Hope over despair, and life in front of death.
I mean, get this: He once fell in love with a poet named Elizabeth. So madly in love with her, he decided to offer Elizabeth his hand in marriage. Unfortunately, she rejected him, saying (almost unbelievably), that while she admired the jewel of his mind and poetry, she much preferred both over the casket of his physical appearance.
OUCH!
Can you imagine being rejected so emphatically? I mean, how could he go on? Could you? I think I’d rather crawl into a casket.
And yet, somehow, despite it all, he went on. Beyond the casket, with hope and light into the eternal. Because, my friends, that is how it works.
That even though this world can be so cruel. That even though life can reject us and turn us over to death, we are assured by God that we too will go on. Beyond the flickering light of memory.
For Christ has found a way! Such that when we receive that call, it won’t be a hospital on the other end, but Heaven. That place where all tears are wiped away. Where all pain and sickness cease. Where daylight is forever saved in a world without end.
Thanks be to God.
Amen
