to him all of them are alive

Jesus said to them, ‘Those who are considered worthy of a place in … the resurrection from the dead … cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’ (Luke 20:34-38)

For me the key words in this Gospel passage are “children of the resurrection” and, even more so, “to him all of them are alive.” 

As we approach the Lord’s Table we go to meet the Lord — who is alive and those too who are alive in Him, alive in the Resurrection. And even, I’ve been thinking, we go to meet those who are yet to come.  

Hope for the future, as well as peace about the past, and faith — both comfort and challenge — for the present, are all proclaimed to us in this gospel.

For in Christ we are in communion with all the saints, all who live and die and are raised with him. 

So as we go up to the altar to take communion we go up not for ourselves only but for all who share in the joy of the saints.

This is a sacrament that we take never so for much for ourselves as when we take it as members of the body of Christ: one bread, one body.

From Isaiah (25:6) we receive this vision of a feast at the end of time:

‘On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples

   a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines,

   of rich food filled with marrow,

   of well-matured wines strained clear.’

The heavenly feast! If we take resurrection seriously, a couple of things happen. 

For if we take resurrection seriously, we take each other seriously. How shall I regard you if I know you are an eternal being, that you will live forever, that in Christ you have a home in his heart? And how then shall I look at myself - at my own actions, at my self-regard or self- envy, my self-criticism or my downward looks, if Christ is real? 

“Eternal life starts here” could be written over the gates of your life - today, any day, as you enter the church, as you approach the communion rail, as you start again, today, to live life as you want it to be lived. 

Even the sorrow of life cut short — or spent badly — is redeemed in the resurrection. And its hope is in us, and we in it. So we can resist despair and live on, live now, in the fullness of that hope, the assurance of redemption.

Father Fuller (from St. Frances Cabrini) said: “Our faith in our future resurrection must affect our lives now.” Knowing who we are and believing in the future changes how we treat each other, how we treat ourselves, how we approach life. 

We are called to live in the fullness of confidence that death is not the end — the end is in Christ — the finality of the goal of all life… as all things are gathered to him.

To live now with the resurrection life before us means living now not only for ourselves but for others: in our sacramental life, in our workaday life, in our home life, in our social and political life…

How we treat one another,  how we treat ourselves, how we live— is in the light of the life of Christ, that frees us, empowers us, and leads us — into strange, new places.

Now, we may not all agree on particular actions — I’m thinking of the social-political realm — but we know of one another who sends us, why and what is behind our actions, the source of our motivations.

The Baptismal Covenant calls on us “to seek to serve Christ in all persons” — and uphold their dignity as children of God, affects how we conduct our public lives — not just how we vote, but in how we speak to others with whom we disagree. Our attitude of certitude or frustration or despair or even anger over public policy must be leavened with hope — with knowing that we are children of God.

How are we then to live? as God’s children, as transcendent beings of infinite value, — as creatures of dust and glory whose mortal acts of the moment are significant in light of our immortality, of the hope of the resurrection, that is, of our presence now in Christ. 

And this presence of Christ in us, which we enact and celebrate as we go up to communion, motivates us, not only to kneel or stand before him Sunday morning, but to stand with him in all the moments of our lives.

In Christ we are all one people. Using political divisions or election anxiety to separate us does not, ultimately, work. For we know that our redeemer lives, and on the last day he will triumph — and we with him. 

We begin to realize, as Christ draws all people to himself, that we are already one in the Spirit, and those boundaries we may seek to draw will all evaporate, dissolve, and blow away in the wind of the Spirit. That Holy Breath that in the Beginning moved across the face of the waters has not been still since creation’s dawn — it is still moving. And as it moves, what the world puts up against it will not stand.

The Rev. Dr. John Leech serves as priest associate at the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson.

The Arizona Daily Star published a version of this essay in the Keeping the Faith feature of the Home + Life section on Sunday, November 20th 2022, page E3, under the title “Stand with him in all moments.”