Can I depend on God? Will He be there for me? When things go badly, can I depend on you? Will you be there for me? Will I be there for you? Will you be there to catch me when I fall? Will we be there to support you with our very lives when you face the valley of the shadow of death, when you face financial ruin, when you are tripped by sin, when you are hurt and abandoned?
Regardless of the accomplishments and faith of our fathers and mothers...from Rahab and Sampson and David to the martyrs of the Church all the way down to Josephus Hopwood and Toyozo Nakarai and Mildred Dampier and Bill and Lela Lacey and Marvin Patton all the way down to Rodney Oakes...their story is incomplete without you...without us. We have our part to accomplish in this long epic tale of faith. We have our stories to add. We have our work to do.
Out of respect, I probably should have found a better picture. But this image will be instantly recognizable for all of you who know and love Rodney, who passed into the arms of the Lord two days ago on Tuesday, August 14, after suffering injuries from an explosion on his houseboat. This picture was taken on one of our roofing days, and, as always, Rodney was the first to arrive on the jobsite, smiling and laughing, working hard and enjoying God's people. Rodney Oakes was a man who understood that faith without works doesn't amount to much. Our love and deepest sympathy go out to his wife, Ann, and to his children Tanya and Del and Rachel, and to his grandchildren and relatives and all who loved Rodney.
It was humility and obedience that brought Jesus to the point of death. Our Gospel reading takes us to the Mount of Olives on the last night of Jesus’ life. Here Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. The name Gethsemane translates “olive press.” Jesus often came to this beautiful grove to pray, and on that night it lived up to its name. Ancient olive presses were simple and effective machines: a basket full of ripe olives was placed on a stone catchment and a massive stone weight came down with crushing force, squeezing the oil out of the olives. On this last night of earthly life, Jesus came to the “Garden of crushing,” and laid his life under the weight of the world’s sin and the inexorable will of the Father.
Can you detect the glow of the resurrection on people's faces? Happy Easter, everyone!
Will Willimon tells of the time Baptist preacher and ethicist Carlyle Marney came to speak to a group of college students. One student asked: “Dr. Marney, would you tell us about your conception of the resurrection of the dead?”
“Absolutely not,” said Marney. “I can’t talk about such matters with anyone under thirty. Look at you. You’re in the prime of life. You need nothing. You’re smart, you’re loaded, you’ve never known crushing defeat, you’ve never had acid reflux, never known sickness or death. So what can you know of a dark world which can only makes sense if Christ is raised from the dead?”
Perhaps the same could be said to some of us today. We sit here on a beautiful Fall day with this passage about the resurrection before us. What does it mean to us?
We Protestants aren’t much for feasts and holy days. We tend to know more about the New Orleans Saints than we do about All Saints. As fun as Halloween is, let’s not let miniature ghouls, witches, and candy corn crowd out the celebration of the lives of the saints. This is a celebration we ought not to lose. But who are saints? Saints are all of us who belong to Jesus. And what is it that we do on this day? We don’t pray to the saints on this or any other day. We have no need to ask the saints to intervene on our behalf before the throne of God. So what does All Saints have to do with us? This is certainly a day to give thanks for those whose lives have impacted our own for Christ. And it is a day when we think of how our lives are connected with the wonderful family of God that stretches through the ages.
