The psalm and reading from the Book of Revelation are in the ‘top-ten’ of familiar scripture readings to Episcopalians. Though Psalm 23 shows up once every three years in the Sunday lectionary, of all the psalms, it is by far the most well-known and loved psalm. Even those who are non-practising Christians can often recite the psalm by heart because it has been such a part of literary culture and because it probably is the most frequently chosen psalm of the burial office.
Likewise, Chapter 7 from Revelation is bound to sound familiar for the same reason: it is one of the choices for the epistle reading in the burial office and people gravitate often to this reading. Maybe they do so unconsciously, not remembering that it also is the epistle reading for All Saints’ Day.
Clearly these two readings of hope and resurrection belong to the burial office and, more so, to Eastertide. Whether it is the psalmist’s bold proclamation of confidence in God, in the words, ‘Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever,’ or the words from Revelation that I have often used at the end of a sermon for a burial, ‘They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ these two readings assure us of the hope of the resurrection.
They also tie together the first and last readings for today, which is always called, ‘Good Shepherd Sunday.’ The first reading from Acts speaks of resurrection with the revival of Dorcas (or Tabitha). And the gospel reading is minimally linked to the Revelation reading through the image of the shepherd.
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The thematic thread that links all these readings together is one that comes from nowadays and not necessarily when they were written, each at a separate time. Beyond the purported theme of the ‘good shepherd,’ which is drawn from the gospel reading is the theme of the resurrection, the ‘Christian hope.’
The Christian hope, as defined by the catechism is, ‘to live with confidence in newness and fullness of life, and to await the coming of Christ in glory, and the completion of God’s purpose for the world.’
The catechism elaborates on this opening statement with the following Q & A.
What do we mean by heaven…?
By heaven, we mean eternal life in our enjoyment of God….
What do we mean by the resurrection of the body?
We mean that God will raise us from death in the fullness of our being, that we may live with Christ in the communion of the saints.
What is the communion of the saints?
The communion of the saints is the whole family of God, the living and dead, those whom we love and those whom we hurt, bound together in Christ by sacrament, prayer, and praise.
What do we mean by everlasting life?
By everlasting life, we mean a new existence, in which we are united with all the people of God, in the joy of fully knowing and loving God and each other.
What, then, is our assurance as Christians?
Our assurance as Christians is that nothing, not even death, shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
With that resounding profession, the catechism ends.
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Each reading before us today tries in its own way to articulate what the vision of perfectness in God can be.
It’s Tabitha, thought to be dead, being raised from her sickbed.
It’s God providing the psalmist with green pastures, still waters, a revived soul, the comfort of presence when the psalmist walks through the valley of death, the gift of a table, an anointed head and an overflowing cup.
It’s the promise of salvation, being clothed in the white robe of baptism, and being redeemed.
And it is Jesus proclaiming, ‘My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.’
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How to bring these wonderful theological ideas back down to earth? In the course of parish life over the years, I have had to think a lot of the resurrection as I remember deaths that have happened to family members of people in the congregation and within my extended family. No matter the age of the person who died, a death is wrenching. John Donne said that every person’s death diminished him. His words are true — when a death occurs, there is a tear in the fabric of the universe and for a moment, in that tear, one sees God’s tears. For a moment, the loss of hope seems imminent.
But, as Dr Jerome Groopman, a Jewish oncologist, writes in The Anatomy of Hope, ‘Hope, unlike optimism, is rooted in unalloyed reality.… Hope is the elevating feeling we experience when we see — in the mind’s eye — a path to a better future. Hope acknowledges the significant obstacles and deep pitfalls along that path. True hope has no room for delusion.’1
Whether it is that hope that we hold that all will be well for those who have died and for us someday when our time comes, or even the irrational hope, like a little flower growing out of parched land, such as I have seen in the poorest communities in El Salvador, this sentiment that sees a better future — in the afterlife or in the here and now — is what keeps us going.
You and I live in ‘unalloyed’ or unvarnished reality. We each have stories to tell of hardship, sadness, loss and suffering. We have walked on the twists and turns of life’s pathways and aren’t deluded by false optimism that often characterises our culture’s attitude toward hardship (along the lines of Bobby McFerron’s ‘Don’t worry, be happy’).
However, we have true hope — affirmation of life in the face of death. This hope, therefore, enables us to live with confidence in newness and fullness of life, yea, to live as ‘Easter people in a Good Friday world’ (Barbara Harris).
We can live in hope because we are part of that unbroken chain of witnesses, called the Communion of Saints, that stretches from the beginning of time to now and the unlimited future. As vast as the stars in heaven, you and I are part of that number, those loved by God from before the beginning and bound to God through baptism for ever. There can be only one response to this knowledge: alleluia!
END NOTE
(1) Jerome Groopman, The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness (New York: Random House, 2004), xiv.
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