In our everyday lives, when we are doing something difficult and worthwhile there is a demand placed upon our character and ability so we can see the thing through. We are stretched. Our stamina and commitment are put to he test. It is expected that since the task is challenging it will require “all we’ve got” to pull it off. We will have to use every resource we have.
We do not want to reinvent the wheel every time, so we listen to experience. We take courage in the fact that someone else has been where we are, and their spirit and help is at our disposal backing us up.
Similarly, All Saints’ Day reminds us of a bit of good news: Someone has taken the high road before us, and they finished the race. They made it to the finish.
In a very real sense this day is the culmination, or result, of the promise that we received last year at the beginning of Advent. The Messiah will come and will bring salvation to his people. It follows then that the Saints whose lives we remember today have all reached the place where they are able to rest from the work of salvation that was required of them. They are absent from the body and present with the Lord.
The Christ child will come, as the carol is sung, “away in a manger”. And the same song makes a request of the child. It asks him to “fit us for heaven to live with thee there.” The work of salvation is Christs’ alone to be sure. But once we are given this gift, we are to work it out with God’s energy working in us.
We need role models for this, too, as was said above. And we don’t mimic the saints, but we do imitate their faith. And how enriching it can be to get acquainted with the individual saints! There are no two of them that are alike, but each is Christ-like in his or her own way.
And they are alive, too. They are not dead.
That is why the night before All Saints’ Day traditionally is the time devoted to a certain ritual which to some Christians may seem out of place. Allowing the dead things and creatures of darkness – all the defeated spirits and the vile and profane beings – to roam the hillsides and the towns on All Hallow’s Eve (Halloween) is an allowance because it shows that their time is short. They can only wreak havoc for a season, even a few hours is all, before the day comes.
Saints live today just behind a thin veil from us. They are part of the great cloud of witnesses we read about in Hebrews 11-12.
