What We're Pretty Sure They Know

Ephesians 1: 11-23

We're pretty sure that the ones whom we honor today, All Saints Day, are with God. We're pretty sure that they understand, fully, what we know only in part. We're pretty sure that they are a part of God. We're pretty sure that they know what heaven is.

We're pretty sure that they see us struggle to understand how God wants us to live. Sure, we get the being good, being kind, being faithful parts, but we struggle with the daily living of that. How do we go? How to be good in this situation, that circumstance? We're pretty sure they know what's the right way to go.

For them, the journey is over. The river of their lives has come to it's mouth, they have achieved sea level, and have come to rest. Do they look down over us? Perhaps. But I'd like to think that they are facing God, rather than facing us.

We're pretty sure that when we come to the communion table, and we think of the cloud of witnesses that surround us, we're pretty sure that we have been brought to them by God, in love, not that they have come to us. We have joined the chorus of love, somehow, in this act of eating bread and drinking juice, even when it doesn't feel like we have gone anywhere. For a moment, we are in the chorus of love ourselves.

We're pretty sure they know that we still love them. After all, it is love that makes up the entirety of who they are now. No other emotion exists in God, other than love. So the love of God is in the end, all that we are. That is what we mean by "created in the image of God". Not arms, not legs, not eyes, hair or mouth. But so far as we love, we resemble God. We're pretty sure they know.

We're pretty sure that they know that when the eyes of our hearts are enlightened, we too will know what they know. We'll find that the hope to which God has called us is real, is more solid than the hardest rock, the hottest fire, the most delicious food and drink. The riches of God's glorious inheritance among the saints is the assurance that what we hope for is real; that our faith is not misplaced. That God is real, that heaven is being with God eternally, and that everyone we love is there.

We, here on this earth, honor those who have died, praying to God that they are with God, and praying that we will earn the same reward. That the end of our lives is not in a grave or a pile of ashes, but that we are launched into a bright place of love and warmth, where we no longer seek God, because we are with God.

We're pretty sure they know God, now. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. And where we place our hope, even our faith, we're pretty sure they just know. We're pretty sure that what we hope for is spread right out there in front of them.