The Ultimate Wedding Reception
Sermon
The Feasts Of The Kingdom
Sermons On Holy Communion And Other Sacred Meals
I've been hearing it a lot lately -- something most of you have heard as well. I suppose holidays remind us of the truth expressed by many when they say, "About the only time our family ever gets together is for weddings and funerals."
Many would agree, and then reminisce with one lady who recently recalled her youth and childhood and holidays. "We not only got together for weddings and funerals," she said, "we were also together for the major holidays, for birthdays and anniversaries. I really miss that," she continued. "All my aunts and uncles and cousins lived within a few miles of each other. I really miss those happy experiences of my extended family."
I suppose most of us can identify with her. I surely can, for I had a similar childhood with most of my relatives within a reasonable distance. But now, even our own children and their families are scattered from Boston to Minneapolis to San Francisco. And even for us it is often the case that weddings or funerals are the occasions that draw us all together.
But of course, my experience of weddings and funerals extends well beyond family. I have conducted the funerals and stood by the graves of hundreds, saying those familiar words, "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust," as the earthly farewells were uttered.
And I have married hundreds of couples over the years and attended nearly as many wedding receptions. In recent years, it has been difficult for families to reminisce much at wedding receptions because the band is so loud. And if at table we attempt to converse above the band, they turn up the volume even more. After shouting myself hoarse, I finally resort to smiling benignly at my tablemates, as I worry about subsequent loss of hearing!
Nevertheless, weddings and funerals have much in common. Both have a way of bringing the family together. Both mark beginnings and endings; the ending of singledom and the beginning of martial bliss (or so we hope!). Weddings and funerals suggest sorrow and celebration, the so-called loss of a son or daughter, but on the other hand, the gain of a son or daughter. And funerals involve obvious loss, and then hopefully promise of the gain of life after death. And with both weddings and funerals, there is usually food, a banquet or reception.
In our text we have both a funeral and a wedding. There is the death of Babylon or Rome, the symbol of the old order of oppression and corruption and death. And there is the wedding -- the heavenly wedding of God and his people with the ultimate wedding reception.
I.
Let's consider first the funeral.
The other day at lunch at a local restaurant, by chance I sat next to a husband and wife who were acquaintances of mine. On a previous occasion or two we had shared pleasantries. And inasmuch as I was reading some books, he learned I was a minister and adjunct college professor. And I learned he was a retired college professor, now teaching part-time as an adjunct. "You have to keep the mind active," he said, "otherwise it goes dull." His wife nodded in agreement!
Throughout lunch our conversation continued. His wife was very active in her synagogue and adored her rabbi from whom she learned so much. "But," she lamented, "I can't get my husband to share my enthusiasm for our religion." He quickly came to his defense saying, "I don't know, but as I get older, I get more cynical."
I joked with him saying it's supposed to work the other way around. Most people, as they contemplate meeting their Maker face to face, become more vigorous in their faith. That is one reason the Florida churches are packed with octogenarians. When one Florida minister encouraged his people to appreciate God's miracles, one old-timer said, "Young man, every day I wake up is a miracle!"
Ogden Nash wrote about that perspective in his whimsical poem, "Crossing the Border." He says:
Senescence begins
And middle age ends
The day your descendents
Outnumber your friends.
(I Wouldn't Have Missed It, p. 312)
And we have become more and more conscious of that at funerals, where so many we once knew and loved are no longer with us, and our descendents do indeed outnumber our friends.
Nevertheless, many of us put off thinking about death because we are too busy with life. Of course, in our younger years most of us think ourselves immortal. And in our preparatory twenties, apprentice thirties, and ascending forties and fifties, we are concentrating much more on life than death. For many of us it is a life of glamour and power, money and success, prestige, accumulation, and accolades. When things go well, when the children achieve, when the money is abundant and advancement assured, it's life and more life we think of, not death.
In our small way we are tempted to become like Babylon, the Roman Empire of our text. Rome too was prosperous and powerful, but also, alas, ruthless and pompous and corrupt. So in John's vision of end-time, Rome falls and meets her death. If Rome can fall, how much more ourselves. And if even Jesus meets an untimely death, how much more could we.
So what is your thinking? What do you plan to do after you die? Where will you be? What will things be like? Will it be "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," period, the finish, the end, finally and absolutely dead? Will your immortality be mostly in the memory of your friends? A 92-year-old member of my former church, upon hearing that explanation of immortality, said that knowing the shortness of his friends' memories, he hoped for something more than that!
Death will overtake us all, some before our time, some after our time, but all in due time will be overtaken. Ogden Nash put it whimsically when he wrote of Death, the Overtaker:
Said the Undertaker to the Overtaker
Thank you for the butcher and the
candlestick maker,
For the polo player and the
pretzel baker,
For the lawyer and the lover,
and the wife-forsaker.
Thank you for my bulging, verdant acre,
Said the Undertaker to the Overtaker.
Then Ogden Nash adds the ominous line: "Move in, move under, said the Overtaker." ("Tweedledee and Tweedledoom," op.cit. p. 281)
It happens to us all -- to the undertakers who are always "the last to let you down," to the rich and famous, the powerful and prestigious, the unknown and obscure, the failures and down-and-outers. "Move in, move under, says the Overtaker" to us all, sooner or later.
II.
If death is the "great leveler" and the reminder of our common humanity and mortality, and if funerals bring us together, perhaps even more weddings and wedding receptions unite us for celebration and the beginning of new life.
Thankfully, that has been the case at many of our children's weddings. They have been magnetic occasions drawing us together across the miles and generations for laughter and celebration.
That was the case with our daughter's San Francisco wedding a few years ago. Great-grandchildren were there to celebrate, as were my father-in-law at age ninety, and my mother at age 84. We wondered if my mother, in failing health, would be able to endure the long flight and be active in the festivities.
But she was there in grand style, with a new dress for each part of the weekend festivities, and with an exuberance and energy that astounded us all. "Mom," we exclaimed, "aren't you tired? Do you want to rest? How do you do it all?" we asked. "It's easy," she replied. "Before I left, I asked my doctor to give me two vitamin B-12 shots instead of the usual one!" My wife and I vowed to sign up for the shots once we got home!
Wedding receptions usually are happy occasions, but there is another side to them. On the one hand, some people are not invited. They are left out. And on the other hand, some who are invited never show up. If wedding receptions are glad occasions for inclusiveness and a sense of oneness, they also are occasions of exclusiveness and rejection and denial. Some are in and some are out.
You may recall Jesus predicted it would be that way in the marriage feast of the Kingdom of God. In his parable of the ten maidens -- five wise and five foolish -- it was the five foolish who were excluded from the festivities. And in another of his famous stories, people invited to the wedding banquet of the Kingdom of God made excuses. They had purchased property, or made new investments, or were getting married so they could not come.
The insiders were too busy, too preoccupied, too self-important to accept Jesus' invitation. So he sent invitations to all the outsiders -- the poor, the lame, the unsuccessful, the outcasts, and they came by the hundreds. Once again those who exalted themselves were humbled, and those who humbled themselves were exalted. We have a choice regarding our destiny.
Speaking of choices, I am reminded of a man in the back row of the church who always used to sleep through the sermons. So one Sunday the minister thought he would break him of the habit.
Very softly the minister said, "All those who want to go to heaven, stand up." The whole congregation stood up except the sleeping gentleman. The minister asked the congregation to sit down, and then said in a loud voice, "All who want to go to hell, stand up!" The sleeping man, startled, stood up, looked around, and finally said, "Well, I don't know what we are voting for, Reverend, but it looks like you and I are the only ones for it!"
Judgment does take place, even for wedding receptions, even for the ultimate wedding reception of God. If we fear the fire of ire we might also fear the ice of rejection. Robert Frost sensed it when he wrote:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
("Fire and Ice," The Poems of Robert Frost, p. 232)
Any of us who have ever been shunned by a sorority or fraternity, or any of us who have ever been blackballed by a club where we sought acceptance, or any of us who have ever been "sniffed" out of the inner circle to which we aspired, well know our world can end in ice -- in the ice of refusal and rejection and the proverbial cold shoulder.
But surely God would never do such a thing, we say. Many of you no doubt read about the controversy surrounding President Clinton. No, this time it was not about his alleged sexual misconduct. This time it was about his receiving Holy Communion from the hands of a Roman Catholic priest in South Africa. Technically, only baptized Roman Catholics are admitted to Roman Catholic altars. So President Clinton, a baptized Baptist, despite former clearance with the priests in South Africa, seemed to be in violation of Church rules.
New York's Archbishop Cardinal O'Connor agreed and said so from his cathedral pulpit. While I very much disagree with the Roman Catholic doctrine of a Christian Communion Table exclusively for Roman Catholics, I very much agree with the Arch-bishop's position that money or prestige or power by themselves should not be the means by which one gains access to the table of God. There is judgment of those who would come to God's ultimate wedding reception, and it could be the judgment of fire or ice.
In the Bible's last book depicting the events of end-time and life after death, the risen, triumphant Christ says to the world's people, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me." And the well-known painting, hanging in thousands of Sunday schools, depicts the scene with Christ knocking at the door of the cottage (which symbolizes the human heart). As you look carefully the discerning eye notes there is no handle or latch on the outside. The door to the heart must be opened from the inside. And the decision is up to us, whether or not to open our hearts to the living Christ.
But at the ultimate wedding reception in heaven, in the great welcome home banquet of life after death in the Kingdom of God, the situation is reversed. Christ is on the inside receiving all those who in faith and hope and love have longed to sup with him in the marriage feast of the Lamb of God.
And it is a beautiful scene -- the scene of the ultimate wedding reception of vintage wines and gourmet foods for the soul, the scenes of glad reunions of those loved long since and lost a while, the scenes of the lame walking, the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the mentally challenged experiencing the fullness of being, the handicapped made completely whole, the oppressed fully liberated, the suffering healed, the diseased in radiant health, the downtrodden leaping for joy in a party that goes on for centuries and centuries with exhilaration and jubilation.
John saw the vision centuries ago -- the vision given him by the Easter Christ. And he wrote: "I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (Revelation 21:2). And people at the wedding reception were saying not let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; but let us eat, drink, and be merry for we are alive forevermore.
And John continued to tell us what he saw:
And the voice from the heavenly throne said, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with (people) ... and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away."
-- Revelation 21:3-4
It is the grand reassurance of the Easter vision. Our dearly beloved, loved long since and lost a while, are not abandoned in cold graves and isolated niches. Their personality is not scattered and lost as so much dust in an indifferent galaxy. The powers of the universe did not bring us to life and love and creativity to end the glowing dreams in a cruel hoax of abandonment and annihilation.
No, no, not that. From the four winds, from the East and West and North and South, the Living Christ beckons all who love God to come to sit down at the great banquet feast of heaven. From all nations and tribes and peoples, from all languages and cultures and ethnic groups, from all times and places, times past and times future, he beckons to his own, "Come. To the thirsty I will give water without price from the fountain of the water of life."
So if you have eyes to see you can see them now -- your brother, your husband, your parents, your child -- all our beloved departed -- celebrating and feasting in the ultimate wedding reception to which we all are invited.
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!
Alleluia! Amen!
Prayer
Eternal God, after the Palm Sunday parade and shouts of triumph, and after the Good Friday jaunts and jeers and taunts, after the nails and spear and crown of thorns and the gasping dying of our beloved Lord Jesus, we gather with you and the singing birds in the quietness of the morning near the garden tomb where they laid him. Like the women of old, we come with the guise of spices, hoping beyond all hope to behold again his powerful being and his radiating presence.
Open our eyes then to see this resurrected, transformed, beloved Son of yours, triumphant over all the powers of greed and graft, and victorious over all the forces of disease and death. Help us to behold him anew, to be open to his transforming power, and to be newly alive with his radiance.
Let him speak to us to release us from bondage and fear and to liberate us from addictive behaviors. If ours has been the negative and defensive spirit, if we have been comfortably apathetic and indifferent, if we have been gripped by the slow, gray suffocation of skepticism and cynicism -- if these and other attitudes have kept us from beholding your empowering presence among us, forgive us and raise us to new life.
And for those of us who have been too much in cemeteries laying loved ones to rest, and for those of us weeping long into the lonely nights over the loss of those we loved, for all of us who mourn and grieve the power of disease and death -- for us all, O God, grant the powerful assurance of resurrection to eternal life in your glorious Kingdom. And help us to know that our loved ones are safely and lovingly within your everlasting Kingdom. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Many would agree, and then reminisce with one lady who recently recalled her youth and childhood and holidays. "We not only got together for weddings and funerals," she said, "we were also together for the major holidays, for birthdays and anniversaries. I really miss that," she continued. "All my aunts and uncles and cousins lived within a few miles of each other. I really miss those happy experiences of my extended family."
I suppose most of us can identify with her. I surely can, for I had a similar childhood with most of my relatives within a reasonable distance. But now, even our own children and their families are scattered from Boston to Minneapolis to San Francisco. And even for us it is often the case that weddings or funerals are the occasions that draw us all together.
But of course, my experience of weddings and funerals extends well beyond family. I have conducted the funerals and stood by the graves of hundreds, saying those familiar words, "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust," as the earthly farewells were uttered.
And I have married hundreds of couples over the years and attended nearly as many wedding receptions. In recent years, it has been difficult for families to reminisce much at wedding receptions because the band is so loud. And if at table we attempt to converse above the band, they turn up the volume even more. After shouting myself hoarse, I finally resort to smiling benignly at my tablemates, as I worry about subsequent loss of hearing!
Nevertheless, weddings and funerals have much in common. Both have a way of bringing the family together. Both mark beginnings and endings; the ending of singledom and the beginning of martial bliss (or so we hope!). Weddings and funerals suggest sorrow and celebration, the so-called loss of a son or daughter, but on the other hand, the gain of a son or daughter. And funerals involve obvious loss, and then hopefully promise of the gain of life after death. And with both weddings and funerals, there is usually food, a banquet or reception.
In our text we have both a funeral and a wedding. There is the death of Babylon or Rome, the symbol of the old order of oppression and corruption and death. And there is the wedding -- the heavenly wedding of God and his people with the ultimate wedding reception.
I.
Let's consider first the funeral.
The other day at lunch at a local restaurant, by chance I sat next to a husband and wife who were acquaintances of mine. On a previous occasion or two we had shared pleasantries. And inasmuch as I was reading some books, he learned I was a minister and adjunct college professor. And I learned he was a retired college professor, now teaching part-time as an adjunct. "You have to keep the mind active," he said, "otherwise it goes dull." His wife nodded in agreement!
Throughout lunch our conversation continued. His wife was very active in her synagogue and adored her rabbi from whom she learned so much. "But," she lamented, "I can't get my husband to share my enthusiasm for our religion." He quickly came to his defense saying, "I don't know, but as I get older, I get more cynical."
I joked with him saying it's supposed to work the other way around. Most people, as they contemplate meeting their Maker face to face, become more vigorous in their faith. That is one reason the Florida churches are packed with octogenarians. When one Florida minister encouraged his people to appreciate God's miracles, one old-timer said, "Young man, every day I wake up is a miracle!"
Ogden Nash wrote about that perspective in his whimsical poem, "Crossing the Border." He says:
Senescence begins
And middle age ends
The day your descendents
Outnumber your friends.
(I Wouldn't Have Missed It, p. 312)
And we have become more and more conscious of that at funerals, where so many we once knew and loved are no longer with us, and our descendents do indeed outnumber our friends.
Nevertheless, many of us put off thinking about death because we are too busy with life. Of course, in our younger years most of us think ourselves immortal. And in our preparatory twenties, apprentice thirties, and ascending forties and fifties, we are concentrating much more on life than death. For many of us it is a life of glamour and power, money and success, prestige, accumulation, and accolades. When things go well, when the children achieve, when the money is abundant and advancement assured, it's life and more life we think of, not death.
In our small way we are tempted to become like Babylon, the Roman Empire of our text. Rome too was prosperous and powerful, but also, alas, ruthless and pompous and corrupt. So in John's vision of end-time, Rome falls and meets her death. If Rome can fall, how much more ourselves. And if even Jesus meets an untimely death, how much more could we.
So what is your thinking? What do you plan to do after you die? Where will you be? What will things be like? Will it be "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," period, the finish, the end, finally and absolutely dead? Will your immortality be mostly in the memory of your friends? A 92-year-old member of my former church, upon hearing that explanation of immortality, said that knowing the shortness of his friends' memories, he hoped for something more than that!
Death will overtake us all, some before our time, some after our time, but all in due time will be overtaken. Ogden Nash put it whimsically when he wrote of Death, the Overtaker:
Said the Undertaker to the Overtaker
Thank you for the butcher and the
candlestick maker,
For the polo player and the
pretzel baker,
For the lawyer and the lover,
and the wife-forsaker.
Thank you for my bulging, verdant acre,
Said the Undertaker to the Overtaker.
Then Ogden Nash adds the ominous line: "Move in, move under, said the Overtaker." ("Tweedledee and Tweedledoom," op.cit. p. 281)
It happens to us all -- to the undertakers who are always "the last to let you down," to the rich and famous, the powerful and prestigious, the unknown and obscure, the failures and down-and-outers. "Move in, move under, says the Overtaker" to us all, sooner or later.
II.
If death is the "great leveler" and the reminder of our common humanity and mortality, and if funerals bring us together, perhaps even more weddings and wedding receptions unite us for celebration and the beginning of new life.
Thankfully, that has been the case at many of our children's weddings. They have been magnetic occasions drawing us together across the miles and generations for laughter and celebration.
That was the case with our daughter's San Francisco wedding a few years ago. Great-grandchildren were there to celebrate, as were my father-in-law at age ninety, and my mother at age 84. We wondered if my mother, in failing health, would be able to endure the long flight and be active in the festivities.
But she was there in grand style, with a new dress for each part of the weekend festivities, and with an exuberance and energy that astounded us all. "Mom," we exclaimed, "aren't you tired? Do you want to rest? How do you do it all?" we asked. "It's easy," she replied. "Before I left, I asked my doctor to give me two vitamin B-12 shots instead of the usual one!" My wife and I vowed to sign up for the shots once we got home!
Wedding receptions usually are happy occasions, but there is another side to them. On the one hand, some people are not invited. They are left out. And on the other hand, some who are invited never show up. If wedding receptions are glad occasions for inclusiveness and a sense of oneness, they also are occasions of exclusiveness and rejection and denial. Some are in and some are out.
You may recall Jesus predicted it would be that way in the marriage feast of the Kingdom of God. In his parable of the ten maidens -- five wise and five foolish -- it was the five foolish who were excluded from the festivities. And in another of his famous stories, people invited to the wedding banquet of the Kingdom of God made excuses. They had purchased property, or made new investments, or were getting married so they could not come.
The insiders were too busy, too preoccupied, too self-important to accept Jesus' invitation. So he sent invitations to all the outsiders -- the poor, the lame, the unsuccessful, the outcasts, and they came by the hundreds. Once again those who exalted themselves were humbled, and those who humbled themselves were exalted. We have a choice regarding our destiny.
Speaking of choices, I am reminded of a man in the back row of the church who always used to sleep through the sermons. So one Sunday the minister thought he would break him of the habit.
Very softly the minister said, "All those who want to go to heaven, stand up." The whole congregation stood up except the sleeping gentleman. The minister asked the congregation to sit down, and then said in a loud voice, "All who want to go to hell, stand up!" The sleeping man, startled, stood up, looked around, and finally said, "Well, I don't know what we are voting for, Reverend, but it looks like you and I are the only ones for it!"
Judgment does take place, even for wedding receptions, even for the ultimate wedding reception of God. If we fear the fire of ire we might also fear the ice of rejection. Robert Frost sensed it when he wrote:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
("Fire and Ice," The Poems of Robert Frost, p. 232)
Any of us who have ever been shunned by a sorority or fraternity, or any of us who have ever been blackballed by a club where we sought acceptance, or any of us who have ever been "sniffed" out of the inner circle to which we aspired, well know our world can end in ice -- in the ice of refusal and rejection and the proverbial cold shoulder.
But surely God would never do such a thing, we say. Many of you no doubt read about the controversy surrounding President Clinton. No, this time it was not about his alleged sexual misconduct. This time it was about his receiving Holy Communion from the hands of a Roman Catholic priest in South Africa. Technically, only baptized Roman Catholics are admitted to Roman Catholic altars. So President Clinton, a baptized Baptist, despite former clearance with the priests in South Africa, seemed to be in violation of Church rules.
New York's Archbishop Cardinal O'Connor agreed and said so from his cathedral pulpit. While I very much disagree with the Roman Catholic doctrine of a Christian Communion Table exclusively for Roman Catholics, I very much agree with the Arch-bishop's position that money or prestige or power by themselves should not be the means by which one gains access to the table of God. There is judgment of those who would come to God's ultimate wedding reception, and it could be the judgment of fire or ice.
In the Bible's last book depicting the events of end-time and life after death, the risen, triumphant Christ says to the world's people, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me." And the well-known painting, hanging in thousands of Sunday schools, depicts the scene with Christ knocking at the door of the cottage (which symbolizes the human heart). As you look carefully the discerning eye notes there is no handle or latch on the outside. The door to the heart must be opened from the inside. And the decision is up to us, whether or not to open our hearts to the living Christ.
But at the ultimate wedding reception in heaven, in the great welcome home banquet of life after death in the Kingdom of God, the situation is reversed. Christ is on the inside receiving all those who in faith and hope and love have longed to sup with him in the marriage feast of the Lamb of God.
And it is a beautiful scene -- the scene of the ultimate wedding reception of vintage wines and gourmet foods for the soul, the scenes of glad reunions of those loved long since and lost a while, the scenes of the lame walking, the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the mentally challenged experiencing the fullness of being, the handicapped made completely whole, the oppressed fully liberated, the suffering healed, the diseased in radiant health, the downtrodden leaping for joy in a party that goes on for centuries and centuries with exhilaration and jubilation.
John saw the vision centuries ago -- the vision given him by the Easter Christ. And he wrote: "I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (Revelation 21:2). And people at the wedding reception were saying not let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; but let us eat, drink, and be merry for we are alive forevermore.
And John continued to tell us what he saw:
And the voice from the heavenly throne said, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with (people) ... and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away."
-- Revelation 21:3-4
It is the grand reassurance of the Easter vision. Our dearly beloved, loved long since and lost a while, are not abandoned in cold graves and isolated niches. Their personality is not scattered and lost as so much dust in an indifferent galaxy. The powers of the universe did not bring us to life and love and creativity to end the glowing dreams in a cruel hoax of abandonment and annihilation.
No, no, not that. From the four winds, from the East and West and North and South, the Living Christ beckons all who love God to come to sit down at the great banquet feast of heaven. From all nations and tribes and peoples, from all languages and cultures and ethnic groups, from all times and places, times past and times future, he beckons to his own, "Come. To the thirsty I will give water without price from the fountain of the water of life."
So if you have eyes to see you can see them now -- your brother, your husband, your parents, your child -- all our beloved departed -- celebrating and feasting in the ultimate wedding reception to which we all are invited.
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!
Alleluia! Amen!
Prayer
Eternal God, after the Palm Sunday parade and shouts of triumph, and after the Good Friday jaunts and jeers and taunts, after the nails and spear and crown of thorns and the gasping dying of our beloved Lord Jesus, we gather with you and the singing birds in the quietness of the morning near the garden tomb where they laid him. Like the women of old, we come with the guise of spices, hoping beyond all hope to behold again his powerful being and his radiating presence.
Open our eyes then to see this resurrected, transformed, beloved Son of yours, triumphant over all the powers of greed and graft, and victorious over all the forces of disease and death. Help us to behold him anew, to be open to his transforming power, and to be newly alive with his radiance.
Let him speak to us to release us from bondage and fear and to liberate us from addictive behaviors. If ours has been the negative and defensive spirit, if we have been comfortably apathetic and indifferent, if we have been gripped by the slow, gray suffocation of skepticism and cynicism -- if these and other attitudes have kept us from beholding your empowering presence among us, forgive us and raise us to new life.
And for those of us who have been too much in cemeteries laying loved ones to rest, and for those of us weeping long into the lonely nights over the loss of those we loved, for all of us who mourn and grieve the power of disease and death -- for us all, O God, grant the powerful assurance of resurrection to eternal life in your glorious Kingdom. And help us to know that our loved ones are safely and lovingly within your everlasting Kingdom. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
