Hope

Welcome to Advent.  The start of the new church year.  And Advent is the time where the church changes gears dramatically, and begins to think about the coming of the messiah.

But there is a bigger question ahead than just 'is there going to be a baby born into the world?'  And that question that doesn't get asked on Christmas Eve, really, is 'why?'  That question is of dynamic importance, you know, not just for Advent, but for most of the year.  Knowing why something is happening, knowing why you do what you do, is extremely important, to have worked out why something matters, so that you may always stand ready to give a reason for the hope that dwells within you.  

And the birth of Christ is no different.  It's not enough to know that Christ was born, you should also know why.  Knowing why, knowing that he was a savior who was born for you changes everything about Christmas, you know, in the same what that your baby is very different to you from a baby.  If it's just a regular ol' baby, then you can like it, certainly, it can make you smile, you can tickle it under its little chin and admire its tiny fingernails, but when it's your baby then everything means something different.  That smile, that chin, those fingernails, they are of such fearful and dreadful importance for you that you may very well never get over it.  Holding your baby is one of those things that changes your entire outlook on life, dramatically alters how you see the world and your place in it.  Holding a regular ol' baby for a friend, or a relative or whatever, even a very new very cute baby doesn't do that. It's nice, but it's not world changing.

The readings at this time of the year really do bring to mind the reason for the birth of the baby in the manger.  The readings that we hear go out of their way to generate within you the knowledge that unto YOU a child is born, and unto YOU a son is given.  This only really works if you understand the key of the Christian faith, which is forgiveness of sins.  Whose sins? Why yours of course.

The readings that we had from Sunday were all about living in a state of readiness constantly, so we can be ready for the coming of the Lord whenever that happens.  When will that happen?  Who knows!  That's why you have to be always ready, because it will be happening whether you're ready or not.  And that's reasonably key, you know, because Christ's return will be as Lord and judge, and he is going to be a lawyer arguing on your behalf.  If you'll let him.  If not, then your sins will be arguing against you.  And that's not a situation that any of us want to be in.

Now, it is only once you understand that you have sins that you've committed that Christmas can really truly mean anything, you know.  It's only once you've moved through the thoughts from Isaiah that we had from Sunday that you can make any progress.  When Isaiah writes

Behold, you were angry, and we sinned;

in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?

We have all become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.

We all fade like a leaf,

and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

we can feel it.  His writing comes from a real place, from a man who has examined himself, from a man who has examined his people, from a man who has taken a long, hard look at the way things are, and has realized that things aren't what they want them to be. This is someone who knows that things aren't working out properly, that the greatness of God is at a heck of a contrast to the misery of humanity. And this is someone who is asking, with some urgency, if they can be saved.  Most of us have never been in that state of panic, because most of us tend to measure good by ourselves, with us as a 1:1 metric of what is good.  But Isaiah is measuring things by a different metric.  Isaiah is measuring things that he and his people have done next to the ineffable goodness of God himself. And they are weighed in the balance and found wanting.  

I hate to go back to this, but it reminds me for all the world of when Peter Hitchens observed the painting 'the last judgment,' and in doing so, was shocked perhaps for the first time in his entire life, into considering that if there were some who would be damned, that he would likely be among them.

“I gaped, my mouth actually hanging open. These people did not appear remote or from the ancient past; they were my own generation. Because they were naked, they were not imprisoned in their own age by time-bound fashions. On the contrary, their hair and, in an odd way, the set of their faces were entirely in the style of my own time. They were me and the people I knew. … I had a sudden strong sense of religion being a thing of the present day, not imprisoned under thick layers of time. My large catalogue of misdeeds replayed themselves rapidly in my head. I had absolutely no doubt that I was among the damned, if there were any damned.”

That understanding is the same as that of Isaiah, rightly concluding that if there was truth and righteousness, if there was peace and goodwill, if any of those things were available, then he, and all his people, would be on the wrong side of it.  And after generations of calling for and seeking a savior, imagine the relief when he arrives.

Like Isaiah or Hitchens, we get to consider our own sinfulness, and to realize that there is a good side to things that we are on the wrong side of.  We have not been alert and awake, about our Father's business. We have been drunk, disobedient, mistrustful and wicked.  We have lived as though we were the measure of all things, and as though God did not matter at all. And the more and closer we look into this moral enterprise, the more we are weighed in that balance and found wanting.

So what does Christ do? Does he come to condemn us, or to urge us all the more into actions that we weren't taking anyway? Or does he come to tip the scales in our favor? That's what he actually comes to do, you know.  And that's why we Christians are so excited to see him, both in the manger, and when he comes in glory.  Because this is your advocate, your friend, your helper and your redeemer.  The one who breaks the chains that you have placed on yourself, who tips the scales in your favor, who rebuffs every claim the devil has on you and said that through his blood he, Christ has claimed your for his own.  Because he wanted to.  Because he was desperate to. 

So be awake.  Be watchful for his coming.  Not just that he comes, of course, but why he comes. Remember why it is that Jesus stepped into the world, and rejoice at the news of his birth.  For it heralds the moment when God and sinners will be reconciled. 

Pink

 It's wild when you see it.

When I was in school, we didn't have Pink Shirt day, now they do.  It's a day that was started in Canada, one of our gifts to the world, where students saw that a fellow student was being bullied for wearing a pink shirt, and so they decided to bring 50 pink shirts in order to show solidarity with the bullied student.  They were also making a statement: 'you'll have to bully us all.'  Well, that initial show of good faith expanded into a movement that broadened across the nation, and eventually internationally, where people would wear pink on a particular day, to stand up against bullying.  

Good initiative.

But there's one fatal flaw, which is that when you observe the school assemblies on that day, you'll see something happening - pink shirt wearing has pretty well universal adoption, and almost everyone wears one.  Even the bullies. 

And that's self defeating, isn't it? What's the point of an anti-bullying initiative in which even the bullies say that bullying is bad but do nothing to change their behavior?  Obviously, everyone is going to agree with the sentiment that bullying is bad, and shouldn't be done, but the real risk and danger is that people would be completely incapable of seeing their own activity as bullying.  They view themselves as good people, nice people, who just happen to have given someone a good natured ribbing once in a while.  They don't see themselves as bullies, you know.  Bullies are bad people.  They're nice guys.  Who isn't?

This kind of dialogue seems to be at least partially related to the Old Testament reading, where there are fat sheep and lean sheep. Fat sheep, lean sheep, and the fat sheep keep on kicking the lean sheep out of the way.  They keep on bullying them aside, thrusting at them with horn, and pushing at them with side and shoulder.  But the fat sheep don't think that they're fat sheep.  They just think that they're sheep.  And when it says in that Old Testament reading that God is going to serve them in justice, we tend to want that to happen, but it's just like the bullies putting on pink shirts.  Of course we want justice, who doesn't?  But the justice that we want likely won't work out in our favor.

That's because we are convinced that we do the right thing.  And we can do that because we tend to view our actions as good, primarily because they benefit us.  The actions that we do are good because we do them.  If something benefits us, it is good.  If it doesn't, it is bad.  By definition, pretty much.  And we can justify all kinds of bad decisions based on how something affects us.  All our actions, good or ill, we can dismiss as being things that we just had to do.  And given that bullies genuinely believe that they are against bullying, how can we possibly make any kind of moral inroads with a group of people who legitimately believe that they have nothing whatsoever to change?

Well, Jesus' division of the sheep and the goats helps with that.  A lot.  The division that Christ makes between the sheep and the goats is done not how we would expect.  We would expect him to divide the sheep on one side, the goats on the other, and to say to the sheep 'you did good things,' and to the goats 'you did bad things.'  And if he had done that, then everyone would universally believe that they are on the side with the sheep. Because modern humanity believes that they have nothing to change, and their actions were good.  People, when they are thinking about themselves as moral agents, think of themselves as people who have done good things by and large.  We took care of our families, we helped our friends, we were good to those who were good to us, and so on.  But the division that Christ makes is something that goes a bit deeper.  One the one side, the sheep, are those who served Christ without knowing, feeding him, visiting him, clothing him, tending to him, that kind of thing.  But the ones on the left, those are people not who did bad things, but who didn't do good things.

That really should convict us.  It should convict us because there's no way out, you know.  We all believe that the naked should be clothed, that the sick should be cared for, that the hungry should be fed, that kind of thing.  But those things aren't being universally done.  And Jesus doesn't let you off with the idea that this is someone else's responsibility.  It's yours.  Through and through.  When you see the needy, how you approach them is how you serve Christ.  If there is still hunger in the world, still homelessness, still misery and illness, then I guess you haven't done enough.  Which is true.

When we look forward to the end of all things, we're looking forward to a world in which every tear is wiped from every eye, where there is no more hunger nor thirst, nor illness nor death.  All those problems have been solved.  That's what we look forward to, and we all acknowledge that such a thing would be good!  We want it to happen.  Amen, come Lord Jesus!  And for that to take place, Jesus Christ had to empty himself completely, had to suffer and die, had to shed his blood for the sins of the world in order to bring about the perfection that we're looking for.  In reality, we're looking towards salvation, paradise, in a way that recognizes that these conclusions are good, and we are also recognizing that we are incapable of doing them well. What it comes down to, then, is for us to realize that it's not our job to change right and wrong, but instead to understand who it is who fulfills right and wrong himself.  

That changes the conversation fundamentally. Ordinarily we say that these things are too hard, so Christ can't have meant them.  But that falls flat when we see that these are things that Christ himself did.  Look through the Gospels, and witness the times that Jesus fed the hungry, healed the sick, ministered to the prisoners, and clothed the naked.  Realize that it cost him everything, far more than we are willing to do.  We want these things to be within reason. Christ is, by definition unreasonable, and will behave accordingly.  He loves you with a desperate love that cannot be restrained, where he embraces us with wild abandon, willing to give it all up for us.  Which he does.

At this time of year, we can feel our need for the savior pressing in on us.  Not just all the cruel, petty things we did, but all the chances to be good and righteous that we didn't take.  But thanks to Christ that he did all of that, emptying himself a little at a time until there was nothing left.  Exhausted, worn to nothing, giving it all for us, so that we can be spared.  It's not that he made the law easier to follow, it has always been too enormous for self-interested people to properly pursue.  But what he did do was to fulfill that law. Every jot and tittle, not one jot, not one iota would be gone from the law, but would rather be fulfilled perfectly by Christ.  And for those of us who don't and can't do enough to alleviate suffering here on earth can rejoice that Christ has set the precondition for a world in which suffering is not there.  Confess your sins, therefore, and get past the idea that you still have to change the morals of God to fit what you are able to do.  Instead, rely on the grace of God in Christ who overcomes.

Counting down

 Have you heard? Christmas is canceled this year!  

It reminds me of the moment in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves where the Sherriff of Nottingham, enraged by the antics of Robin Hood, calls for the cessation of various practices that benefit the poor.  Alms for lepers, merciful beheadings and the like.  But he ends by saying 'And call off Christmas.'  

Laughter ensues.

Laughter ensues because we know that it is outside the scope of any one man to call off Christmas.  You can't just cancel Christmas, you know.  Nobody can just reach into the calendar and pluck that day out of existence.  Goodness knows the Grinch tried to pull that stunt off in Whoville all those years ago, making sure that the presents, ornaments, roast beast and who hash were all spirited away and taken to a cliffside to be tossed over.  But as it turns out, his heart grew three sizes that day, and the only casualty was like one glass ball.  

The reason that the Grinch brought all the goods back to Whoville was because he realized that he was not able to stop Christmas from coming. The Whos still gathered in the town square and sang their who-hearts out, saying Christmas has come at last, as long as we have hands to clasp. And the Grinch thought to himself at the top of the cliff, that maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store.  Maybe Christmas means a little bit more.

Fast forward to today.  Christmas season 2020.  Fast forward to a time in which people are out of work, impoverished, and incapable of getting together with friends and family. No toddies, hot or otherwise, no carols, no gifts because you're out of work, and no parties.  Essentially, it's how the COVID stole Christmas, and it's taking massive effect right now.  There was a CBC story that I read recently that talked about this, and you can go ahead and read it for yourself.  What it boils down to is that for people who are out of work, who can't afford gifts, who won't be going to parties, who can't see friends and family, Christmas will be 'just another day.'  Not putting up the tree, not singing yaboo doray in the town square, nothing like that.  Just another day.  COVID did what the Grinch and the Sherriff of Nottingham could not do: for some, it canceled Christmas.  

Now, we did this to ourselves, you know.  Over time we did something to Christmas, something that we shouldn't have done. This is the fruit of the commercial Christmas, the end result that was guaranteed to happen.  When we took Christmas and turned it into the Holiday Season, it had to become something other than it was.  Something that was generic enough for everyone to celebrate.  But if everyone was going to be able to celebrate, they're going to have to celebrate in a non-specific fashion.  Not everyone believes in Christ, you know.  So in order to have a world celebrate this festival all at the same time, you're going to have to welcome them into what our Catholic friends call the accidents, but not the substance.  What do Christians do on Christmas? Well, they go to church, of course, but they also gather together to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  They open presents, and while they are together, they have a nice big meal, because they're celebrating something very important.  The birth of the savior, Christ the Lord.  They sing songs, drink festive drinks, play games, watch seasonal films, and enjoy the season.  Well, why happens if you want to expand that beyond the base of Christians who already celebrate it?  Well, you can do that fairly easily, by keeping the accidents, but not the substance.  If you jettison the birth of the baby in the manger, the coming of the King of Kings, but you still want people to celebrate Christmas....what's left?

Well, you can't just come out and say that the true meaning of Christmas is keeping the stores in business through the annual season of buying and selling.  You have to at least get a fig leaf for that naked consumerism, lest the individual understand that he or she is being played for a sucker.  So, if you want everyone to take part in the buying and selling and partying, you're going to have to make Christmas all about something other than the birth of Christ.  It's going to have to be all about family, friends, parties and togetherness.  It's all about the songs, the movies, the big meals and the togetherness.  

And that can be canceled.  

So these stories about Christmas being canceled or ruined or whatever, these stories are all about how those accidents are impossible now.  You can't have the accidents, and the substance, which can't be canceled, was removed, which turns Christmas into a grind that you can't deal with.  It will be an absolute grind to suffer through the simulation of Christmas this year, if all you're doing is having family meetings over zoom, singing Christmas carols to yourself, or decorating for nobody.  If you've been conditioned over dozens of years to believe that the true meaning of Christmas is all those things, and you can't have them, then yes, Christmas will be canceled, at least for you.  

But the reading from Zephaniah, well, that should cause at least some kind of adjustment for us.  Zephaniah which tells you that there is a massive problem with our complacency, with our buying and selling and fraud. Zephaniah that tells us that the great and terrible day of the Lord is coming, the reckoning which will destroy and enervate.  The day of the Lord that will demolish and despoil.  That day of the Lord is on its way, and will be here at some point, and should it be so, we will be weighed in the balance and found wanting.  That troubles us, and brings us at least some slight fear.  The fear of the Lord is something that has stuck with us even in our advancement, as we touch the stars and split the atom, there is still the fear of God that lingers with us.  The possibility that we might be judged is something that we put out of our minds, distract away, but in reality, it is always there, right at the back of it all, and it never really goes away. When someone suggests it, we get upset, kick back against it, and push hard.  But it never really goes away.  If we sit down and read the writing on the wall, it will be the same as the writing in Zephaniah, that we are weighed in the balance, and found wanting.  None of us want it, but it's there, large as life.  So what to do with it?  

The words in Zephaniah that talk about judgment, about a great resettling of debts, and about the wicked being called to tasks, those words can and should trouble us, and as the end of the church year draws close, we are being impelled by this time of year to look more towards Christmas than anyone else.  Not to the part that can, and perhaps has been canceled, you understand, but towards the part of Christmas that can't be canceled because it has already happened.  That's the real deal, right there. The trouble that stirs us up, especially at this time of the year, the trouble that bothers and plagues us, it does so for a reason. We can fool others that we are perfectly moral agents, but we can fool neither God nor ourselves.  And when we read through the writings of the prophets, that there will be a great leveling, we are troubled and afraid.  

So this year, then, now that everything else is on hold, canceled, or shut down, you can look at things a little bit differently.  You can say that for Christmas, only once we've lost everything that it was, is it free to mean something.  In some ways, there is a great blessing here. The fear and trepidation that we're all experiencing - threat of a virus, of civil unrest on one side, and a gnawing existential dread of our sins and damnation on the other, for once, there's no distraction clogging things up. This Christmas, now that the Grinch has stolen everything, there's nothing between you and the manger where the savior of the world is. The one who calms your fears and dries your tears, that savior.  And he is right there, in the form of a tiny child, born into this world just for you.  All the parties, the business that we all swear we're not going to do this year, we're not doing it.  The presents are going to be sent, the obligations are lower, the meal is smaller.  So you have time.  

Once all the accidents have been stripped away, all you're left with is the substance.  The savior. The one who has come to save you.  Rejoice in his presence this Christmas, maybe like you never have before.

Preparation

These days, you have to bring more with you than you did before.

I'm old enough to remember when you left the house with keys and a wallet.  That was it. You could bring more of course, cash, maybe a cheque so you could pay for things, but keys and a wallet were expected.  From 2000 until about 8 months ago, it was standard procedure to leave the house with your cell phone as well as your wallet and keys.  But these days, a new challenger has appeared, and that is a mask.  With more and more cities and communities moving to a mandatory mask policy, in order that everyone be kept safe, you have to leave the house with phone, wallet, keys, mask, that kind of thing.  And the reason that you leave the house with those things, is that they anticipate the four circumstances that you are likely to encounter - You may have to buy something while you are out, you will have to operate your car / let yourself back into your house, you will want to communicate with someone while you are out, and if you're going indoors basically anywhere, you'll need your mask.  You bring these things around with you to cover the likely eventualities, even if you're not sure you'll need them.  In reality, you may well need them or you may not, but you won't know until the opportunity presents itself.

Now, of course, if you could rewind time, you'd know exactly what equipment you'd need for the day, but at the time, stepping into a future as yet unknown, you don't have that kind of luxury.  And that's just for a standard day. That's not taking into account all the other possibilities that may or may not exist at any given moment.  If you could have known, you would have anticipated them.  If you would have known you'd need a screwdriver, or a #2 pencil, or a pocketknife, you would have brought them along, but without knowing exactly what you would need to cover an eventuality, you have to trust that you're as prepared as possible for what is most likely to occur.

But imagine, if you will, something being not a possibility, but a certainty.  If you lock your door on the way out, you're going to have to unlock it on the way back in.  That's not a maybe, that's a given.  Okay, good.  So when you're working out the importance of certain items, you have to work in that order, I suppose.  And we, as people who are living in these last days, are people who are thinking about encountering Jesus not as an if, but as a when.

That one's a certainty, and at this time of the year, we think more and more about it. The reality that we will, certainly, meet our God.  Either when we go and see Him, or when He comes to see us.  One of the two of those things will happen, for certain, and so we should be prepared for it.  The problem is that for most of the time, we get to put this sort of thing out of our heads, and not think too terribly much about it.  We can be distracted by a hundred thousand tiny things, Netflix, grilling, tobogganing, and songs by the campfire.  But meeting your Lord isn't a possibility, it's a certainty.

Every once in a while, we are rudely reminded of the fact that we will encounter God someday.  Right now, that reminder is a little spiky fella called COVID-19.  The virus that is making the rounds gave us all time to think, and to think about our own mortality.  You leave the house, you risk death at any moment.  Candy chutes, tongs and masks for Hallowe'en, zoom meetings for Thanksgiving and Christmas, to stay safe, you have to stay apart, but until very recently indeed we gave very little thought to staying safe.  After all, death is something that happens to old people, and old people are determined by being people ten years older than yourself.  

But this is the season, in the church year, of the apocalypse.  And we're thinking about that now.  Political upheaval, a circulating virus, absence from friends and family, hunkering down and being scared, all these things that we are doing now, and it feels apocalyptic now, doesn't it? If someone were to tell you that this is the end of days, you probably wouldn't even be that surprised.  Every time Jesus talks about wars, rumors of wars, famine, persecution, and then says that these things are all just the beginnings of the birth pains, we should take seriously the idea that there will be at some point an end to all of this.  It may not be this year, or in a thousand years, but it will be eventually.

So your job, not just as a Christian, but as a human being in the world, is to live as though the world could end tomorrow, and you would be ready for it.  Does that mean that you rob a bank, and hire prostitutes because you want to have those experiences?  Probably not, of course.  But what it does mean is that you don't want to leave anything important left unsaid, and that you don't want to leave anyone not knowing how you feel, and how much they mean to you.  So go and do that, of course.  Call your mom, your dad, your dear grandmama, and let them know that they're important to you and that they matter.  But it's not just that you're going to leave this world behind one day, everyone knows that, even the non-religious.  Rather, it's that you're going to meet God.  And do you want to do so standing confidently in your own righteousness?  Or do you want to do so standing in his righteousness instead?

What does the story of the scriptures come down to?  Frequently, people say it comes down to John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."  How does that happen?  Christ takes your sins and nails them to the cross.  Your sins are forgiven, and you are embraced by God with the righteousness of Christ.  And that's a one-tool job.  If you knew for sure you were going to open a bottle of wine, you'd bring a corkscrew.  If you knew you were going to have to cut a tree down, you'd bring a saw. If you knew for sure you were going to pull out an ingrown hair, you'd bring real metal tweezers.  A swiss army knife is used because you don't know which eventuality is going to come up, so you're bringing some things that might be useful, but none of them are as useful as the one tool designed for the job at hand.  An actual saw is more useful than the three inch one that comes in your swiss army knife. A real pair of scissors is better than the tiny set that comes in your knife.  It'll do in a pinch, but you're better off to have the right tool for the job.  If you knew for sure that you were going to encounter the risen Lord,  not as a maybe, but as a certainty, then what would you do to prepare?  Confess your sins.  Read your Bible. Talk to God as often as possible.  Have your faith strengthened through the sacrament of the altar.  Then you're ready.  

The foolish virgins didn't bring any oil with them. They waited and waited, and their lamps eventually went out.  But they knew that the bridegroom was going to be there, and he was.  But when he arrived, they weren't ready. You need to be ready.  Whether you go to meet God, or he comes to meet you, you have to be ready in either circumstance.  This is not a maybe situation, this is a guarantee.  Instead of worrying about which eventuality might arise, think about the one that for sure will happen, equip yourself for that one, and then you can properly focus on the rest.

The forest for the trees

 There's a fun expression out there that says that you can't see the forest for the trees.  The big gag being, of course, that the forest is made of trees.  That is, you can't have a forest without trees, so if you see a large number of trees all together, there's a good chance that you're looking at a forest without intending to.

But what the expression means is that you're missing the big picture.  That is, you're looking at  something and missing the big picture for the details.  And that's easy to do, to be sure, to obsess over the details, the small picture, and miss the big picture of what is going on, and what to do.  But in the reading that we had on All Saints' Day, it ends up being the opposite.  That is, we miss the details because we only see the big picture.

We are people who are, right now, every day, looking at a big picture, and missing the details.  In my days now, what tends to happen is that I look at the numbers of cases, the numbers of deaths, and the number is so big that it just sort of washes over me. The details are completely lost to me as I watch the numbers tick up day by day, and see how much the line goes up by.  Say what you will about Joe Biden, but what he tried to do in his debate with Donald Trump was to humanize the Covid 19 crisis.  He spent some time talking about empty kitchen chairs, jobs left open because those who had been working at them had expired, and empty beds because the people who slept in them have now died.  This was a great humanizing moment, because we are tempted to miss the details in terms of the big picture.  That red number on worldometers, the number representing deaths, it just sort of goes up over time, and it's easy to forget that that number is made up of individual people who lived, felt dawn, saw sunset's glow.  Loved and were loved, and now lie dead.

We're coming up on Remembrance day, and that's the other humanizing day for the dear dead.  We remember the people who gave their lives for King and Country, but also the individuals who served their country whom we know.  They may have died overseas, they may have come home. They may have returned to normal life, and they may have been so traumatized that it stayed with them for life.  Humanizing them and making their service and sacrifice real means that we are less likely to forget them.  It's easy to forget a number, but it's harder to forget a person who matters.

When you're thinking of the great crowd of witnesses that nobody can number, it's easy to miss the trees for the forest.  It's easy to see them as just a great crowd, but Jesus didn't die for a crowd, you know.  He didn't shed his blood that a country, or a tribe, or a people could be saved, but he shed his blood for individual people.  Babies who are held and baptized in the sweet waters of baptism.  Children who come to Sunday School, and confirmation.  Adults who give themselves to one another in marriage, who share life and time with their friends and their relatives, people who live lives of quiet obedience to God and his covenants, who live and die and are remembered certainly not by history, but they're remembered by us.  They matter to us.  

And they matter to God.

The entire story of the scriptures is God making a promise to Abraham, saying to him that his descendants will be more numerous than the stars of the sky and the sand on the beach, and then also finding, seeking and saving the lost.  Lines talking about how he has engraved us on the palms of his hands, about how he knew us before he formed us in the womb and set us apart.  Jesus talks about how he as come to find, seek and save the lost, about how he leaves the 99 to go and find the one.  It's a big deal, and it seems obsessed with individuals.  Because God is obsessed with individuals.  He desires all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.  All people.  All individuals.  He stands at each individual door and knocks.  

That's the good news for you today, in a world where the bad news sort of overwhelms and washes over everything.  Where you can't keep up with the news that is so big that you can't even see it anymore.  A relentless tide of sickness, bodies, a great crowd that you can't even number anymore.  But you can think of individuals.  Of people.  You may very well be thinking of those today whom you love and have lost, and to think about them in a world that has moved on and has forgotten.  But God has not forgotten.  He remembers them still, as you do.  He loves them so much that he shed his blood for them, sanctified them, made them holy. And he came that you and they may have life together forever.

He does this not because these saints of God are well thought of or famous, but because they are not.  He shed his blood for the forgotten by the world, for the unknown by history, but for those whom are vitally important to those who were affected by them, and who love them still.  There's a movie out there called 'the incredible shrinking man.'  It's a slow burn, but it's worth it.  And that movie tells the tale of, well, a shrinking man.  The effects are reasonable, and he ends up being terrorized by small household pests, and lives in a dollhouse, and so on.  But he keeps on shrinking, for the whole movie, all the way to the end.  It gets very philosophical by the end, where he shrinks down to sub-cellular levels.  And he says something wildly profound, for those of us who are thinking of those whom we have loved and lost.  To God there is no zero.  They still exist.  There are no unimportant people to him, which is the majesty of All Saints' day.  Not that we celebrate those who are well known, thought of, and remembered, but we celebrate those whom the world has forgotten, but whom God has engraved on his palms, and for whom he shed his blood.  The individual who make up the great crowd.