For All the Saints

This year All Saints is transferred to Sunday, November 7, as far as it can be moved. At Christ Church we will have people carrying banners of saints and putting photos of their loved ones in the window alcoves. It is also a First Sunday, so youth will be participating in the service, and we will have incense – new Trappist incense burned on new “smokeless” charcoal. To round out the day we will have two baptisms, both bringing large extended families.

How does all of this fit in with the readings for the day? It’s still lectionary Year C, so we have what often seem like third-string selections (the most appropriate ones having been assigned to Years A and B). Daniel has a terrifying vision of four great beasts rising out of the sea. Ephesians is even more obscure than the rest of Paul’s letters, if that’s possible (and indicates that Paul may not have been the real author). The Gospel starts out like Matthew’s Beatitudes, but Luke shortens them and adds his own series of “woes.” What does all of this have to do with All Saints, let alone baptism?

Perhaps the place to start is with the day itself. All Saints originated in the early Christian desire “to express the intercommunion of the living and the dead in the Body of Christ,” as Lesser Feasts and Fasts puts it. Martyrs were especially honored, but all those who had died in Christ were included at first, as in New Testament usage. Only as “saints” became limited to those who led an especially holy life (and why were they mostly male clergy?) did it become necessary to create a second All Souls’ Day for all the faithful departed. I am glad that those faithful departed can once again be included with the “real” saints, and will grace the windows of our church.

Thus it makes sense to celebrate both the beginning and ending of life in the Body of Christ on this Sunday. Ephesians says, “In Christ you also…were stamped with the seal of the Holy Spirit.” “Stamped with the seal” is all one word in Greek, and by using “stamped” the Revised English Bible emphasizes the physically of that sealing. For baptism I will use oil blessed by the bishop, and those sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism will be marked as Christ’s own forever. That mark not only signifies ownership but also protection by the owner – Jesus Christ, in this case.

Ephesians lays out what we can expect from being sealed: “what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.” That’s a pretty big set of promises to give to a three-month-old child, which may be why there will be godparents to remind him down the road. Even so, those promises are often forgotten in the day-to-day work of living. But they are made nonetheless, and a faithful God will not fail to carry them out. Just ask any of the saints.

All Saints Sunday: Daniel 7:1-3,15-18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1:11-23; Luke 6:20-31.