We give thanks to the Lord for His victory over death and the grave both for those who are now with Him in glory and for ourselves even as we press forward in faithfulness awaiting the Day when our eyes will see Him.

Jesus breaks through our barriers in His beatitudes. He shatters our conceptions of the blessed life and opens the Kingdom of God to all people.

His kingdom is not one of force and might for our exploitation and his gain, but one of his patience and long-suffering for our benefit.

We have the freedom to joyfully participate in neighborhood fun with the love of our neighbor in mind.

We show up to this crowded sacred shindig on Sundays, all wings and halos and blue jeans, and shimmy our way into the sanctuary, late to church but not late to church, for how can we be late to a service that never ends?

The lavish nature of God’s love is indicated by the fact that He, as Father, is the author of our being adopted as sons and daughters through Holy Baptism.

On All Saints Day, the beatitudes remind us how God in Christ claims people, frail, humble, poor, mourning, and makes them His own.

When I hear my brother’s name, I will grieve a little. But I will also rejoice, for I know that he is with his Savior.

It’s been my experience that All Saints’ Day, celebrated on November 1st and observed on the first Sunday following, gets overshadowed by the celebration of Reformation Day.

On this day, the church remembers all the saints who have gone before us.

The striking truth of this festival is not that the church remembers the saints who have gone before us, even though we rightly chime the bells and speak the names of those who in the past year have flown away (Ps. 90:10). The real joy of this day is that those who have departed are counted together with us as the church and we are counted together with them.