Hi everyone,
I can’t believe that it’s almost November already. It just seems like yesterday we were welcoming 2024 and now we’re look at 2025 in a couple of months. Actually, I can’t even believe that it’s 2024, it’s like it was just last week we were welcoming in the new millennium and now about a quarter of a century in.
Time sure flies. And things happen. Life continues to go on.
The past 25 years brought a lot with it. Of course it has, it’s a fair chunk of time. Some of it was good, some of it bad. But above all, the thing that connects them together is that they all happened.
We can say goodbye to the past, the losses, the death, and say hello to the future, the gains, the life. We can’t change what was, but we can look ahead with hope.
Hope in the promises of God, hope in the certainty of the gospel, hope in new life.
Here are the readings for next week:
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44
These texts that we get for All Saints Sunday touch us all emotionally. They might remind us of someone we’ve lost, as we’ve all lost someone. They might remind us of the tears that we’ve shed as we’ve all shed some. They might remind us of the grief that held us down because we all know that we’ve felt that kind of grief… that heartbreaking, onerous, debilitating grief.
We see this grief in the Israelite community mourning the loss of their land that was promised to them. We see it in Mary and Martha and their community in the loss of their brother Lazarus. And we see it in Jesus, weeping over his friend who died in his absence.
But even in that grief, we see God present. In that despair, we hear God’s promises. In that anguish and brokenness, we know God’s healing grace that pieces us back together in community and lifts us up in hope.
This doesn’t mean that death will not happen anymore, or that things won’t end. This doesn’t mean that we can relive and return to the past. But it means that we can look ahead at what will come with confidence, filled with the hope found in the salvation given to us through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And we will come again with joy.
Thanks be to God! Have a great week, everyone!
Picture is of the marker in the Memorial Garden at Grace Lutheran Church