Blessed Are The Dead

This year my family is blessed to spend the month of November in the United States. We landed at Boston-Logan Airport this past Tuesday night; on Wednesday morning, I hiked one of New Hampshire’s lovely “4000 footers,” Mt. Tecumseh. That had certainly not been my plan. Normally one would prefer to rest and recover following trans-Pacific travels, but the weather left me little choice. If I didn’t go on Wednesday I might not be able to go for over a week, or possibly at all. So I found myself on the trail less than 24 hours after arriving in America.

Although the weather was beautiful and I was plenty prepared, my body was none too happy about this turn of events. Tecumseh is not a particularly difficult hike, but a forty-plus-year-old body recovering from twenty-four hours of straight travel (not to mention tennis and the gym before we left) sees things differently. About half-way up, I really started to feel it. The path I took had seemingly endless steps, and with my camera bag on my back it was especially tough. I had to stop for a breather on several occasions. It crossed my mind to lay on the ground and take a nap right there on the trail. I seriously considered turning around and going back home.

But as I pressed on, contemplating my reasons for enduring such hardship, a cheerful bearded hiker descending the mountain greeted me, letting me know the views at the top were spectacular. “You can see for a hundred miles,” he assured me. A little later another happy hiker let me know the views were worth the climb. It was enough for me to continue my ascent, albeit with numerous stops along the way. I don’t know how long it took me to climb (my jetlagged brain was in no state to keep time) but I finally reached the summit. The strangers on the trail had not deceived me – the view certainly was worth it, and the rest while I enjoyed the view was that much sweeter.

Last night I enjoyed a different view: watching my kids (or should I say Gandalf, Chewbacca, and Obi-Wan Kenobi) wander a neighborhood collecting candy in their costumes for Halloween. Living in Japan for much of our family’s life, I have largely missed out on this fun tradition. I was thankful to be able to enjoy it this year, especially with extended family involved. But today is All Saint’s Day. While much of the world goes on to Thanksgiving and even Christmas, I pause to remember my brothers and sisters who are now absent in the body but present with the Lord, that great “cloud of witnesses” that has gone on before me. And as I reflect on it, I believe my hiking experience is not unrelated.

Down the road from my in-law’s home is a small graveyard that has been there since the 1800s. A number of the graves include men who fought in the revolutionary war. One individual personally served George Washington, cooking for him and receiving a horse from the President following his honorable discharge. But there are many individuals whose names, I suspect, would be unknown to almost anyone. Some tombs speak of faithful marriage covenants carried out over decades. Others tell of marriages cut mournfully short by the sting of death. Still others tell of grieving families who lost children in their youth. But what stands out to me the most are the tombs with these words written on them: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on” or in one case simply, “Asleep in Jesus.”

The prior words are spoken by an angel in Revelation 14, testified to by the Holy Spirit: “‘Blessed indeed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!’” The Lord assures us that those who die in him (those who “sleep” in Jesus) are blessed. Makarioi are the dead – this blessing is pronounced using the same word that Jesus used in the beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek … and blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. The dead who belong to Jesus are blessed. Jesus turns the sting to blessing. How are they blessed? Because they have endured, they have pressed on, and now they can rest. Their deeds follow them, the Lord remembers them, and he brings them into his presence.

The promise of Jesus is this: “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” That promises from John 11 is fulfilled to those who die in him. They are not truly dead (in the sense that we typically use the word), but alive in him, and alive with him. To be asleep in Jesus is to be both awake and at rest, aware and at peace, awaiting the day when he awakens his dead fully to the new resurrected life to come.

And this is why a day like All Saints Day is so fruitful for the Christian. It is an opportunity to remember the dead in Christ, an opportunity to listen to the testimony of the great cloud of witnesses who surround us. As we climb our own mountain and are tempted to give up, tempted to turn back, their voices call out to us from the grave. I hear my grandfather encouraging me in his playful voice, “the view is great, dear grandson! Keep climbing!” I hear my great aunt’s voice, filled with love, as she tells me what is like to look into the infinite beauty of God. “You can see forever!” she says, “keep going!”

I’m grateful this year that I could be here for All Saints Day, and spend some time in this little graveyard, being encouraged by the promise of God. I trust that the individuals on whose tombs these words are written are indeed enjoying their rest in the Lord. And I hope on that great day, when the Lord returns to fulfill his promise and makes all things new – when he raises his people from the dead and transforms their dead bodies into the glorified bodies of eternity – that I will get to meet some of them. I hope that they will tell me how it was worth it. I hope they will share with me their sufferings and how God has turned it into glory. That lost child, that marriage cut short, that painful illness, has now sprouted into glorious, eternal beauty. And I hope that I will have opportunity to do the same.

“Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Blessed indeed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!’” (Revelation 14:12-13)