I imagine if you were to poll a group of priests, most of them would say that one of their favorite liturgies in the Episcopal Church is the burial office – not because of the painful journey of grief and loss that leads to such an office, but because of what the liturgy and its scripture lessons accomplish.  In the midst of personal pain and gut-wrenching bereavement, the Church shows up with scripture lessons that point us toward ultimate things – that remind us of the ultimate source of hope for the faithful:  the promise of resurrection and eternal life.  Grief can upend your entire center, leaving you feeling lost.  But scripture, the burial office liturgy, and our faith are like a tether that hold us steady – that hold us close to Christ when Christ can feel absent.

Our lessons today on this feast of All Saints are all lessons traditionally recommended for a burial office – ones that have given us hope as we have lost spouses, parents, children, friends, and spiritual mentors.  They are lessons that give us hope for that feast of rich food and well-aged wines, where death is swallowed up forever, and God wipes away our tears.  They are lessons that promise that death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.  They are lessons that depict a Jesus deeply disturbed and deeply moved by our suffering. 

So why all this focus on end things?  Why this focus on ultimate things?  For one, as we honor the saints who have gone before on All Saints Sunday, these are lessons that remind us of what the Church has always believed about life, death, and eternal life in Christ.  As we will later recall in the service those souls closer to our own journeys and tie ribbons on the altar rail in their memory, the Church wants us to be ever confident in where those souls are and where we will go too.  And as we reaffirm our baptismal covenant today – that reminder of how in baptism we go down into the baptismal waters and die to self and come up again born anew in Christ, we are reminded that we are a kingdom people, living in resurrection not just in eternal life but in the here and now.

I am especially grateful for this feast of All Saints, on this day of remembering ultimate things, as we head into a week that feels especially weighty and consequential.  Not only are we each feeling our own anxieties and fears about how this presidential election will go (probably not all agreeing about which way would be best), I was also reminded yesterday as I watched the investiture of our new Presiding Bishop Rowe, that the rest of the world joins in our anxiety.  As a primate from South Sudan reminded us, our presidential election this week does not just impact us, but has ripple effects in countries around the world. 

Into this global anxiety, in this conflicted country, commonwealth, and county, we are gifted the same thing the Church gifts us with at every burial and every reminder of the saints:  the reminder of ultimate things.  We are reminded that in celebration and catastrophe, God is with us, wiping away tears.  We are reminded that in victory and defeat, death holds no power over us.  But maybe most importantly, we are reminded in anxiety, in relief, in hope, and in hope vanquished, Jesus is by our side, deeply moved and ever ready to continue showing us God’s glory when God’s glory feels long lost.

Today our lessons and our liturgy are powerful reminders that we have a sacred duty to live into our baptismal covenant.  That may not sound like much of a balm – maybe the command to honor our baptismal covenant feels more like homework than comfort.  But we are never baptized just into comfort.  We are baptized through comfort to live radical lives as Christ’s disciples – where we share the good news of God in Christ, where we gather in weekly worship and communion, where we seek and serve Christ in all persons, and where we strive for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human being.

Yes, this time feels so weighty on our shoulders that we feel like we may collapse under the weight of this time.  But the Jesus who weeps for Lazarus is the same Jesus who told us his burden is easy and his yoke is light.  The Jesus who is deeply disturbed is also the Jesus who troubles the water – the waters in which we died in baptism and rose to new life.  The Jesus who walked alongside Martha and Mary is the same Jesus who walks alongside you and me.  Our invitation today is take that baptismal covenant seriously – with the heft of ultimate things like death and resurrection and eternal life.  We stand in those baptismal waters this week, and we invite others to join us.  Those waters are our source of strength this week.  Amen.