“The Ring of Eternity amid Mortality”
Revelation 7:9-17; Ephesians 1:8b-23
The Rev. Dr. Seth E. Weeldreyer, First Presbyterian Church of Kalamazoo
November 5, 2023 – All Saints Sunday
Postlude done. Last person in line gone. Our sanctuary was nearly empty last Sunday. We began chatting in the back, then ambled up the aisle. She shared a bit about her life and faith journey, maybe sparked by others doing so earlier. Good questions. Some deep emotion / yearning. Sensed a sort of holy moment we might like to settle into a while. That’s when her adorable young daughters clamored for attention. Not robed in white, more like all shades of pink – a 50s poodle skirt, a princess, and an octopus. They sat on the throne, such as it is in our church – these three seats in the middle, under the cross. “Mommy, we want to put on a show for you! Sit down and watch!” Joyful, singing, dancing with abandon, life abundant for those with eyes to see, ears to hear, heart space to cherish. A sacred moment indeed, if you ask me, when all that’s best and lovingly joyfully holy radiates in our humanity. As if time stands still; as if physical / emotional space expands and we glimpse eternity.
The three girls robed in pink (not white) stuck in my heart this week as I ruminated on Revelation. Maybe it’s just with the eyes of my heart I’d rather see that joyous scene than all the other strange and scary stuff John imagines. That’s how we read it now – scary, weird. But it’s not how people long ago would have gotten it. And not at all what John intends. You see, he writes a letter, not a weather forecast or part of God’s screenwriters’ guild scripting a predetermined future. He writes to people under severe oppression, for whom suffering and persecution even death are ordinary reality not fantasy. He uses a common dramatic poetic apocalyptic style. People understood that more than literal data it speaks to the heart and fires imagination. To connect. Bring comfort. Engender hope. Empower daily life. John says: I get your experience. It’s hard. It will end, and new life will come … no more hunger, thirst, scorching fear, gushing tears. The lamb—no lion—will be on the throne. Imagine what good news it would’ve seemed amid all the ordinary human struggles they feel and extra persecution they face as we follow news of guns, missiles, bombs, prejudice, persecution, abuse in our own time. How might we see Holy Love enthroned among us today?
With the same spirit / intent, Paul or one of his disciples also wrote a letter. It’s named Ephesians, but it’s been found with several names, passed around like email or social media. Well, it’d be a super long social media post—like a few I’ve ever done … way too long. Still, whoever heard it first, thought it was helpful, touched their hearts. So they forwarded it to others to help them, too … around ancient Greece, Palestine, and Turkey, tracing a geographical circle, like a ring connecting the known world. And sort of ringing, echoing in the voices of the next one to read. Reverberating in listeners hearts and maybe in how they lived. Resounding down generations.
I’ve heard of your love toward all the saints (friends, feel the intimate connection). I give thanks and pray that with the eyes of your hearts enlightened, you may know hope, receive power, nurture life in down-to-earth wisdom and the beautiful mystery of sacred grace in Christ. The mystery of real resurrection we inherit and pass along to our children and friends – the fullness of God in our humanity. A glimpse of eternity in our wondrous and wounded mortality. As if dwelling in the magnificent throne room of God – the most beautiful and powerful projection of life they could imagine from their own experience. Yes, I wonder how we might imagine the throne of God looks among our ordinary lives. Holy Love reigning supreme. Divine Grace infusing, flowing, transforming all hurts, loneliness, despair. Maybe it’d be some hall of congress or oval office magnified manifold. Maybe it’d be a soaring sanctuary like ours with high ceiling and radiant stained glass—that’s why people built these this way. Maybe it’d be a cacophony of voices and clattering dishes for a meal in our dining room, or hammers swinging, or scissors cutting. Maybe it’d be easy laughter in a classroom or eager energy sparking expectation in committee conversations. Maybe it’d be tender tears shared, quiet stillness settled into, or three girls in pink dancing innocent, exuberant.
Like John’s Revelation re-imagined today, friends, that’s how I picture hearts enlightened, comfort and hope inspired, Sacred presence and power and purpose inherited across generations … as I believe God created us and still wants us to share.
“I saw Eternity the other night like a great ring of pure and endless light.” I’ve long loved Madeleine L’Engle’s poetic … well, revelation, really. Sort of like Ephesians, she quotes another poet Henry Vaughan and then riffs off the literary inheritance she received. That’s what we do every day. And especially at poignant moments when we remember dear family or friends who’ve entered the life eternal. Maybe we have moments when a postlude of life is done homes, pews, relationships can seem nearly empty like our sanctuary last Sunday. Maybe someone we love is still literally breathing, but we’ve been grieving the Spirit of life, the personality and vitality leaving like a long drawn out sigh. We, too, amble down an aisle of memory, inspired to reflect on life and faith, with poignant questions, even deep emotion, maybe at best sparked by someone else sharing earlier. And that’s when our dearly beloved ones call to us like three little girls dressed in pink. We’ve put on a show for you. Sit, pause, pay attention. Their voices, actions speak to us, ring out further into our lives and beyond. Friends, if we want to feel that, can we get an: Amen! In John’s Revelation, the Amen sounds like a heavenly chorus, jubilant, exuberant. Maybe we’ll get a few girls to help us … joyful, singing, dancing with abandon, life abundant for those with eyes to see, ears to hear, heart space to cherish.
Or maybe as we’ll share in a few moments, our loved ones’ lives are like a bell—a single note tolling, or a few ringing together. As at other times they’ve joined a choir to harmonize divine melodies of grace, striking chords of love that particularly touch people in a moment of joy, or in a time need. If we’ve counted, there’s one bell here from every name we’ll read.
You see, friends, on All Saints Sunday we celebrate that our lives are ever more than individual, as so many in African, Asian, non-western cultures get. God forges us as part of larger relationship – holy, divine, the Body of the Risen Christ, Paul imagines. As we mourn loved ones lost, we’re comforted in our own mortality. As we ponder the meaning of our life, we realize it’s far beyond whatever pleasure we accrue, accomplishments we pursue and achieve as long as we have breath and ability. We reconsecrate our whole being to want to live inspired by God’s promise: You are Loved! To touch others as we’ve been touched by this good news. Continue the symbiotic circle of grace … heart dancing like three little girls … resurrection, full abundant life made real and radiant in every moment possible.
Maybe today is a bit of a resounding echo of our Reformation Sunday Living Faith reflections last week. Who are people whose love and encouragement and life witness have inspired us? Famous figures. Intimate partners. Ones whose names today will be followed by a toll of bells.
Riffing on Madeleine L’Engle we might write: I saw, heard, felt Eternity in a chord, a melody, like a beautiful ring of hymnic harmony echoing through all our mortality. Come, behold! The feast of heaven has to us mortals been given. Alleluia! All who trust in God belong, at this this banquet with this throng. Alleluia! And so we sing a song of the saints of God, patient and brave and true … The world is bright with joyous saints who love to do Jesus’ will (maybe like dancing all dressed in pink). And just maybe we want to be one, too.
Thanks be to God. Amen.