This is an interesting day to me this year, the year in which I laid my Dad's remains to rest. Mostly but not exclusively in Catholic settings this is All Souls Day, or the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed.
There is unquestionably a fellowship between the Church on earth and the Church at rest but this has been an awkward fellowship to define. It has alarming, spooky elements when Spiritualists or those inclined their way seek to speak with the Dead. It is only a little better in the one way communication by which the Saints are allegedly spoken to in prayer (without any assurance that they can hear and no Bible promise that suggests they can). In evangelicalism a peculiar two part problem arises when the Faithful Departed are dispensed with in somewhat the way of any text containing the word Thou, i.e. they are fine but they are history. This, however is countered by a hope that in the sweet by and by we will meet on that beautiful shore and reconstitute our families.
This latter hope has always bemused me given that my Grandad was also someone else's nephew or Grandson - so how would that work? Jesus was asked a similar question about married reunion - what happens if a wife has remarried six times? Who's she married to up there? Jesus answer is authoritative and exactly explains what the future state is all about - one family in God not Mr and Mrs, Father and Son.
Or to put it another way, today a son celebrates not a departed father but a departed brother in Christ; a widower not a departed wife but a departed sister in Christ.
There are other times when old relationships, contingent to this world, may be reflected upon with tears or cheers. But once in a while it is good to remember our soul-fellowship; to remember that relationship in baptism which binds us eternally; to remember the Lover whose love modelled the best of our earthly love without ever being matched down here; to remember that unity in Him that holds us tighter to him and to each other than any imitation found in the relationships recorded on birth, marriage and death certificates.
This is the fellowship planned and formed and preserved by the love of Jesus.
There is unquestionably a fellowship between the Church on earth and the Church at rest but this has been an awkward fellowship to define. It has alarming, spooky elements when Spiritualists or those inclined their way seek to speak with the Dead. It is only a little better in the one way communication by which the Saints are allegedly spoken to in prayer (without any assurance that they can hear and no Bible promise that suggests they can). In evangelicalism a peculiar two part problem arises when the Faithful Departed are dispensed with in somewhat the way of any text containing the word Thou, i.e. they are fine but they are history. This, however is countered by a hope that in the sweet by and by we will meet on that beautiful shore and reconstitute our families.
This latter hope has always bemused me given that my Grandad was also someone else's nephew or Grandson - so how would that work? Jesus was asked a similar question about married reunion - what happens if a wife has remarried six times? Who's she married to up there? Jesus answer is authoritative and exactly explains what the future state is all about - one family in God not Mr and Mrs, Father and Son.
Or to put it another way, today a son celebrates not a departed father but a departed brother in Christ; a widower not a departed wife but a departed sister in Christ.
There are other times when old relationships, contingent to this world, may be reflected upon with tears or cheers. But once in a while it is good to remember our soul-fellowship; to remember that relationship in baptism which binds us eternally; to remember the Lover whose love modelled the best of our earthly love without ever being matched down here; to remember that unity in Him that holds us tighter to him and to each other than any imitation found in the relationships recorded on birth, marriage and death certificates.
This is the fellowship planned and formed and preserved by the love of Jesus.
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