What is All Saints Day All About?

Death does not win

Photo by Holger Motzkau

If you've read back through the posts in Authentic Light or looked at the "Movement" section up above, you know that Christianity is an alien civilization with its own calendar. This day -- November 1st -- on that calendar is called "All Saints Day." Now, I know that the word "saint" is usually a signal to the brain to fog over, but stick with me. I'm planning to be brief.

First point: There was wide disagreement in Jesus' day about the afterlife. Many people aren't aware of that fact but it's where we need to start. For example, one group called the Sadducees (i.e., basically rich priests) didn't even believe in an afterlife at all. Other groups were all over the map: you went to heaven (Alexandrian Jews), you went to heaven and were later resurrected (some Pharisees ), you just ceased to exist but were resurrected (other Pharisees ), and so on.

Life

Jesus of Nazareth taught that there was a life after death. For the Sadducees, who only used the five books of Moses as their Bible, he demonstrated it from a passage they had apparently never considered. When he and two criminals were being tortured to death by crucifixion Jesus comforted one of them by promising on his authority as Messiah, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise," (Luke chapter 23 verse 43).

"The one who believes in me will live even if he dies, and the one who lives and believes in me will never die,” (John 11.25-26) Jesus said. Death does not win, life does. The question of the day at every human death is, "Do you believe this?"

So Jesus here and other places taught that, ideally, after your death you are a.) still alive, b.) with him, and c.) in a place called Paradise. Of course, everyone knows there are a lot more questions that this doesn't answer ("Do you mean everybody? Could Hitler-like people go to Paradise? Is Paradise the same as Heaven? What about the resurrection? etc., etc."), but we'll go into that in future posts. I wanted to get us to this point so we could talk about All Saints Day.

Triumphant

So say you are a faithful follower of Jesus of Nazareth (which is basically what that word "saint" means, although in most of the Christian movement it is often reserved for heroically faithful followers) who reaches the end of your time on earth. You step over from the human life you've been living into Paradise. Jesus is there. Also there, we can logically infer, are all the other faithful followers of Jesus from the past 2000 years. Actually longer than that to judge from that debate with the Sadducees. Your grandma, the great-uncle who vanished in the Bermuda Triangle, and ancestors from AD 1865, 1247, and 321 are all there.

All these people are part of what is called the "Church Triumphant" -- triumphant because they made it! That sad, unfair, often unfulfilling, grinding, and increasingly achy life is over for them. Now they live in a place where God, "will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more—or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist," (Revelation 21.4).

All Saints Day is to celebrate members of the Christian movement who have been martyred, to remember their accomplishment of remaining faithful to the Messiah through their lives, down to the bitter end. In the late AD 300s Ephrem the Syrian was the first to mention that Christians had a special day to commemorate all of these people. There is actually another day, "All Souls Day" on November 2nd, that celebrates all the rest of the Church Triumphant. 

In the ancient Christian poem that this whole site is structured around -- the Apostle's Creed -- these people are mentioned along with all of us. "I believe... in the communion of saints" refers to the awesome reality that Jesus' followers today "are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses," that every last member of the Christian movement from AD 33 through to this very second, in Paradise or on earth, comprise together Jesus' one church -- his Kingdom.

Sometimes Life is Like This

Job in Agony

by Leon Bonnat

Why then did you bring me out from the womb?
     I should have died and no eye would have seen me!
          I should have been as though I had never existed;
               I should have been carried right from the womb to the grave!
Are not my days few?
     Cease, then, and leave me alone,
that I may find a little comfort,
before I depart,
     never to return,
          to the land of darkness and the deepest shadow,
               to the land of utter darkness,
               like the deepest darkness,
and the deepest shadow and disorder
     where even the light is darkness.

Book of Job 10.18-25

The Story

(This is a repeat of a previous post while I am at a conference.)

So what do we mean when we talk about the "revelation" Jesus brought or the "deposit of faith" or the faith "given once and for all to the saints?" What was it that the Apostles were so busily "passing down" to the members of the Christian Movement? Yes, certainly the New Testament, but read on for a minute to see where I'm coming from. Before word one of the New Testament was committed to writing, Jesus' emissaries were teaching this revelation face to face.

I'm taking this from my site's 'Prologue' up at the top of the page. The other red boxes break up and discuss what this Prologue says. It's fairly short and I'll expand on it in future articles, but I'd ask that you notice two things as you read it through: First, how bare-bones it is. Jesus left a lot of the work up to his Movement. Another topic for a future post, I think!

And second, notice... that it's a story! The revelation Jesus left us with did not consist of a list of rules or a detailed chart of how Bible prophecy works out. When the last Apostles died they left us with a story.

___________________

Personally, I like a religion that can be summed up in a short poem.

In ancient times, when someone decided to follow Jesus of Nazareth, they would first have this poem recited to them, line by line. And after each line they would be asked, "Do you believe this?" "Yes," they would respond, "I believe."

Then they would be baptized.

That poem, of course, is the Apostle's Creed, dating back to the earliest days of the movement Jesus founded. During the first ages of that movement, Christian documents were expensive, cumbersome, and prone to be confiscated and burned by the authorities. But, although you might not be able to carry the Bible with you, you could carry this poem (composed of artfully arranged quotes from Scripture) in your mind.

Today, whatever else they may squabble about, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant are united on the truth of these words. Even those groups that claim to eschew creeds will usually agree with it's teachings.

It is this poem that we present here. These are the core truths Jesus and his Apostles taught. This is what the ancient martyrs died for. This is the Authentic Light.

~~~

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried.
He descended into hell.

On the third day he rose from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting.

Amen.

'Memento Mori'

For more about the Christian teaching on life and death (the real teaching, the one we started out with and actually still teach without most people noticing) visit our page on 'LIFE.'

memento mori

Photo courtesy of Leo Reynolds

Sorry to bring this up on a nice, relaxing weekend. I know you'd probably rather not hear it, uncomfortable subject that it is. But death, after all, is an integral part of Jesus' teachings. He spoke on it and its ramifications at length. As they used to say during the Middle Ages, "memento mori" -- "Remember, you too must die." So for your Sunday meditations I present one of the great teachers of the Christian Movement, followed by several scriptures to back her up.

_______________

Remember you have but one soul; you will die but once; you have only one life, which is short, and which you must live on your own account; there is only one heaven, which lasts forever—this will make you indifferent to many things.

Teresa of Ávila  (AD 1515 - 1582)
Minor Works of St. Teresa, p. 198


As for me, my days are sprinting by like a runner. Seeing nothing good, they seek escape... Humankind, born of woman, has a few brief years with much suffering.

Book of Job 9.25 and 14.1, Voice


You have determined the length of my days, and my life is nothing compared to You. Even the longest life is only a breath.”

Book of Psalms 39.5, Voice


A voice says, “Declare!” But what shall I declare? All life is like the grass. All of its grace and beauty fades like the wild flowers in a field. The grass withers, the flower fades as the breath of the Eternal One blows away. People are no different from grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; nothing lasts except the word of our God. It will stand forever.

Book of Isaiah the Prophet 40.6-8, Voice

All Live

by RadicalBender

So all live to God.

Gospel of Luke 20.27-38, Voice



God lives in eternity, outside of time. When he looks at us humans he sees all of us all at once from the beginning to the end, everyone who ever was or ever will be. And so, "All live to God."

And also -- everyone who ever lived, lives now, or ever will live in the future will continue to live. We are not eternal, of course, because we had a starting point but after that point we will continue to live -- somewhere.

God's bias on the subject of where you should continue to live is plain. In one of our ongoing series here, here, and here so far) I'm spelling out what details we have about where we go when we die, but we all do go somewhere.

And so, "All live to God."

Life After Death, Part 2

The gateway to Sheol

(The first two sections of this series are Life After Death, Part 1 and A Revelation About Revelation. In Life After Death, Part 2 I want to briefly cover what the God of Israel revealed about death before Jesus came.)

In the Garden of Eden God reveals the icy fact that doing wrong leads to death. The revelation that there is something after death is made only a few chapters farther into the story of mankind. Interestingly, this piece of information is spoken of (by the ancient patriarch Jacob) as though it is common knowledge, something that's been known for a while.

You may remember the story: Jacob's children were jealous of his favorite son Joseph, so they sold him to slave traders and ripped up Joseph's famous "coat of many colors," soaking it in goat blood. Jacob was given that as evidence that "a wild animal has devoured him! Joseph is surely torn to pieces!"

That is the situation when Jacob says this, for the first time in the Bible, about a place called Sheol:

He refused to be consoled. And he said, “No, I shall go down to my son to Sheol, mourning.” And his father wept for him.

(Book of Genesis 37.35 New Revised Standard Version)

For the Hebrews, Sheol was the place you go when you die. As they interacted with their God over the years, they gradually learned some details about this place, although giving a grand tour of Sheol never seemed to be high on God's to-do list.

What Sheol is not

It's important to know that there are two ways that Sheol is mistranslated in some Bibles. One is to render it as "hell." The old King James Version tells us for instance that the guests of Folly, "knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell," (Book of Proverbs 9.18 KJV). But Sheol, as we'll see, was nothing like the dreadful fiery place that "hell" conjures up in our minds today.

Another incorrect translation of Sheol is "the grave." This one is understandable because sometimes the Scriptures will say something like, "Your pride is brought down to Sheol, and the sound of your harps; maggots are your bed beneath you, and worms are your covering," (Book of Isaiah 14.11). But even in the first place it's mentioned, Sheol can't mean just a grave. At this point in the story, Jacob believes his beloved son Joseph is torn to shreds in the wilderness, unburied and his bones scattered. Yet he is sure, despite this, that Joseph is in Sheol, where Jacob will eventually join him: "I shall go down to my son, to Sheol."

A grave is to Sheol what the front door is to a house. Graves are "the gates of Sheol," which you can be "summoned to go through," (Isaiah 38.10, LEB).

Dark, dusty, silent

Photo by Kecko

What it was like

Sheol was conceived of as being underground (Book of Amos 9.2, Book of Ezekiel 31.16) or under the sea, as deep as you could possibly go (Book of Deuteronomy 32.22, Book of Jonah 2.2, 6). This was because Sheol was as far as you could be from Heaven, where God is (Book of Job 11.8, Book of Psalms 139.8).

You existed in Sheol as a repha, which was very similar to what we would call a "ghost" -- a disembodied spirit (Job 26.5, Psalms 88.10, Isaiah 14.9, etc.). Modern Bibles translate this word as "shades" or "phantoms." On at least one occasion a necromancer was apparently able to bring Samuel the Prophet's repha up from Sheol at the request of the Israelite King Saul, (1st Book of Samuel 28.8-19).

At first people thought of Sheol as dark (Job 17.13), dusty (Job 17.16), a quiet place (Psalms 115.17 and 31.17) where not a lot happens (Book of Ecclesiastes 9.10), and you were pretty much cut off from God (Psalms 6.5, Isaiah 38.18). But they realized fairly soon that nobody is ever cut off from God: "Sheol and Destruction are open to the LORD, how much more the hearts of the children of men!" (Book of Proverbs 15.11).

As time went on the later prophets revealed that Sheol wasn't quite the quiet, do-nothing place the Israelites had assumed. Both Isaiah (Isaiah 14.3 - 20) and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 32.21 - 32) describe a louder and more active Sheol, with Kings welcoming other Kings to the underworld and whatnot.

Years ago some scholars would brush all this off as just "poetic descriptions of the grave," and even now the occasional preacher will claim that that's all Sheol is. But honestly, there are 65 mentions of Sheol in the scriptures, and many more passages using synonyms. Taken together, there is no way it can just refer to the local cemetery. As John Cooper says in his book Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, a standard work on the scriptural view of the afterlife:

In fact, there is virtual consensus that the Israelites did believe in some sort of ethereal existence after death in a place called Sheol... As far as I know, the general description is undisputed among Old Testament scholars.

(Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Duelism - Monism Debate, pp. 52 - 53)

One for all?

The interesting thing is that in the Old Testament everybody goes to the same place. Job actually rhapsodizes about it. Nowhere does the Old Testament mention different destinations for the good and the bad. We are told that Sheol has "chambers" (Proverbs 7.27) but no clue what they're for. But as we get down to the Book of Daniel, and the subject of resurrection comes to the fore, we do get a hint that the life you lived matters in the afterlife:

At that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever, 

(Daniel 12.2 - 3).

*          *          *

In the next installment of this series we'll get into what Jesus himself taught about life after death and before resurrection, and how it all ties together with what we talked about today.

Life After Death, Part 1

Read more in Part 1a>>

What happens to us when we die? Do we lie there moldering in our graves? Do we head off to Heaven to live a disembodied eternity with God? Are we conscious or do we "soul sleep" until the resurrection?

As the Apostle Paul said in the scripture I posted Sunday (1st Letter to the Corinthians chapter 15 verses 22 - 24), whatever it is that happens to us, it will be the same thing that happened to Jesus when he died. Followers of Jesus live "in Christ," bonded together with him. Like him we will die and be resurrected; only the timing is different. As the Messiah, he went first, and we will all follow him by being bodily resurrected when it's our turn -- "when Christ comes again."

Jesus' younger brother once wrote, "A person’s body that does not have a spirit is dead." Christ's body, we know, died and was buried in a tomb for 3 days, but what about his spirit? Where was the spirit of the Son of God during what the Christian Movement has long called "Holy Saturday" -- the time between his burial and resurrection?

Wherever it was, or whatever condition Jesus' spirit existed in, our spirits will experience the same thing between our deaths and resurrections -- with one important caveat: the universe was altered on a cosmic scale with the death and resurrection of the Messiah. That was sort of the point, after all: "The Son of God came for this: to destroy the devil’s work," (1st Letter of John chapter 3 verse 8, ERV). So conditions may have changed even in the world of the dead since those epic 3 days, but the overall situation of those who will be resurrected remains.

 It's never been our main topic of conversation (that, of course, would be the announcement of the arrival of the Lord Messiah and his Kingdom) and we never fleshed it out as much as you and I might like, but the early Christian Movement was aware of where Jesus was, and where we go, between death and resurrection.

So this will begin a series of posts on the after life. The scholar N.T. Wright famously calls being resurrected "life after life after death," something Jesus and his Apostles were much more interested in. But we won't go quite that far for now. We'll be looking at what they taught about what comes before that: "Life After Death."

Read more in Part 1a>>

Just Like Him

 Meditation for a Sunday Morning

"The Resurrection" by William Blake

Courtesy of the Art Renewal Center

In Christ all of us will be made alive again. But everyone will be raised to life in the right order. Christ was first to be raised. Then, when Christ comes again, those who belong to him will be raised to life. Then the end will come. 

(1st Letter to the Corinthians chapter 15 verses 22 - 24, ERV)


Jesus coming back to life is just the beginning. We will all follow him through death and out the other side.

_______________________

We believe also in the resurrection of the dead. For there will be --  in truth there will be -- a resurrection of the dead, and by resurrection we mean resurrection of bodies. For resurrection is the second state of that which has fallen. For the souls are immortal, so how can they rise again? ...It is then this very body, which can decay and dissolve, that will rise again incoruptible.

John of Damascus (AD 676 - 749)
Exposition of the Orthodox Faith Bk. 4 Chap. 27

The Meaning of the Resurrection

Resurrection

by James Tissot

Yesterday we celebrated Easter, also known as Resurrection Sunday, the most important day in the Christian year. But have you ever wondered what it is about Jesus rising from the dead that makes it so significant? What does a resurrection prove?

Here's a little confession: when I was a little kid, growing up catholic, I thought of Jesus as a kind of religious superhero and his resurrection was his mightiest super-deed. By coming back from death he somehow blew open the doors to Heaven so we could all go there when we died.

When I got a little older I thought of it more as a wager. You probably remember this episode from one of the times Jesus and the Pharisees clashed:

"Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law answered Jesus. They said, “Teacher, we want to see you do a miracle as a sign from God.”

Jesus answered, “Evil and sinful people are the ones who want to see a miracle as a sign. But no miracle will be done to prove anything to them. The only sign will be the miracle that happened to the prophet Jonah. Jonah was in the stomach of the big fish for three days and three nights. In the same way, the Son of Man will be in the grave three days and three nights.

(Gospel of Matthew chapter 12 verses 38 - 40, ERV)


In other words, "So you don't believe I'm the Messiah, eh? Tell you what I'm gonna do: you guys kill me. Then if I can come back to life in three days, I'm the Messiah. If I don't, I'm not. Deal?"

That's how I thought of it -- sort of an ancient David Blaine stunt. And I don't think I was alone, although most people wouldn't put it in these crass terms. (Side note: If you've ever wondered about the various ways Jesus' time in the tomb is described -- three days, after three days, three days and three nights, etc. -- I'll cover that in a future post.)

But it wasn't a stunt and it wasn't just a mighty deed (although it is that).

What is a Resurrection?

Think about the word "resurrection;" what did it mean to the average first century Jew? True, there were lots of ideas about the afterlife among them, including that there wasn't one. But for the people back then who spoke of a resurrection (which included the Pharisees, interestingly enough, and most of the devout common folk), it meant a specific thing.

We've talked before here about what the Messiah was supposed to do. There were different ideas about him too of course, but broadly speaking most people agreed he would: be a warrior, ride into Jerusalem, defeat the enemies of God (i.e., the Romans, naturally), purify the temple, and set up the Kingdom of God, which ushered in an age of unending bliss.

"I Am the Resurrection"

For people who believed in a resurrection, every righteous Israelite would come back to life, body and soul, when the new age began. You can see this belief for yourself in that famous scene where Jesus and Martha talk at the grave of her brother Lazarus.

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to greet him. But Mary stayed home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you anything you ask.”

Jesus said, “Your brother will rise and be alive again.”

Martha answered, “I know that he will rise to live again at the time of the resurrection on the last day.”

Raising of Lazarus

by Rembrandt van Rijn

She was expecting her brother to come back to life, along with everyone else, "on the last day" of this age. And incidentally, no one was expecting some sort of mass hallucination when this resurrection happened. Believers in a resurrection meant a real, honest to goodness coming back to life in a body in the Kingdom of God. In our day, of course, some speculate that Jesus' resurrection was just a nice, comforting vision, or a feeling that Jesus was still alive somehow beyond the grave. Visions and spiritual feelings were quite familiar to the Jewish people. They happened regularly. Neither one would convince them that a resurrection had occurred.

But back to Lazarus' grave, notice how Jesus answers Martha.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection. I am life. Everyone who believes in me will have life, even if they die. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never really die. Martha, do you believe this?”

Martha answered, “Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God. You are the one who was coming to the world.”

(Gospel of John chapter 11 verses 17 - 27, ERV)

Here and Now

Here's the point: to Martha and other faithful Jews like her whenever the resurrection finally happened it would mean that the Messiah had come and defeated God's enemies, that the Kingdom of God was here, that the end of this evil age had arrived.

But for the the resurrection to happen now, in the case of Jesus, meant that the Messiah and his Kingdom were here now -- in the middle of history. And that was unexpected to say the least. The Apostle Paul wrote:

God promised long ago through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures to give this Good News to his people. The Good News is about God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. As a human, he was born from the family of David, but through the Holy Spirit he was shown to be God’s powerful Son when he was raised from death.

(Letter to the Romans chapter 1 verses 2 - 4, ERV)

He is "the resurrection" indeed!

At the beginning we asked, "What is it about Jesus rising from the dead that makes it so significant? What does a resurrection prove?"  As the Christian Movement has always proclaimed in the Great Announcement (a.k.a., the Gospel) it means that the Messiah has been crowned, God's Kingdom is here, and we are those upon whom "the ends of the ages have come."

"Repent and believe this Good News!"

Holy Saturday: "...You will not leave me..."

The Watch Over the Tomb

by James Tissot

I always remember that the LORD
     is with me. 

He is here, close by my side, 
     so nothing can defeat me. 

So my heart and soul will be 

     very happy.

Even my body will live in safety,
because you will not leave me 

     in the place of death. 

You will not let your faithful one 

     rot in the grave. 

You will teach me the right way to live. 

Just being with you will bring 

     complete happiness. 

Being at your right side will make me 

happy forever. 

(Psalms chapter 16 verses 8 - 11, ERV)