I know that my redeemer liveth
I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth.
We are in the month of Remembrance: On All Saints and All Souls – Remembrance of the heroes of the church and those we miss personally, And, next week, those lost in war. Our readings from across the Bible today all reflect on resurrection and Christian hope. So we might ask ourselves this morning – What is our hope? Hope. It does not feel, presently, like a time of hope. And it’s a Sunday morning there may be a million incidental things our minds are occupied with – Shopping lists, Strictly Come Dancing, doctor’s appointments, the week ahead – But, in the last two years, we have all had time to reflect on our mortality; Even among those without religion a panoply of views on life after death circulate. What is your Christian hope? And what is it based in?
Tomorrow, I’m taking a service at Putney Vale. Not wholly unusually, there is no next of kin. It’s arranged by a solicitor who may not be present with a funeral director who will organise a number of services that day, taken by myself, who have, through a number of phone calls, managed to get only as many facts on his life as could be written on a post-it.
The saving grace is that he served as a corporal in the British Army, and worked for SSAFA and the Royal British Legion: army charities; and the British Army doesn’t abandon its own. Representatives, with little or no personal connection will attend and, astonishingly, a standard bearer, himself in his 80s, who never met the deceased, is travelling with his wife from Devon, to attend.
So a life, which like many, drifted into isolation in his last years, will have, I hope, the send-off that he might have hoped for. And, because I can’t let the standard bearer travel for 8 hours for a 20-minute service, we will toast him at a local hostelry after the service.
Next week is Remembrance Sunday, where we will promise, once again, that ‘at the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.’ Primarily, we remember the fallen of the First World War, and this should not be forgotten. That generation earned an enduring national act for their sacrifice. But we also remember those of later conflicts. And memorials to many wars exist across our country. All Souls College, Oxford’s was founded to pray for those who had fallen in the 100 years war with France, A war that never officially ended – Brexit means Brexit. Right?
Remembrance is a form of human solidarity. We can’t imagine what it was like to be going over the top on the first day of the Somme, any more than a hail of longbow arrows silently descending on us, But in our connection as humans, as Britons, We count ourselves with them, and count them with us. Remembrance is a form of life after death.
This matters because it gives us the beginning of an understanding of what Christian hope might look like. The fact that even solid atheists believe in remembrance – and not just for our sake but as a duty to the fallen – suggests a universal human instinct for connection to past generations, which points to something that takes us past death.
In the Christian faith, our remembrance of the dead, is a participation in God’s remembrance of all the dead; A remembrance that is in complete knowledge of all people and their circumstances, that comprehends the whole person. So Job, in those words immortalized by Handel, proclaims that at the last in his flesh he shall see God; Just as the psalmist looks to when he will see the face of God in righteousness; That his heart will be weighed and examined by night; To have all your thoughts, words and deeds remembered is to face judgement, But, as Job says, with God on your side. But Christian hope is more than this – It looks to a time where we may be transformed in the image of Christ, just as we were made in the image of God.
What this will look like is not clear. So the Sadducees in today’s Gospel are making fun of Jesus. Rhiannon loves to tell people how you can remember the difference between Pharisees and Sadducess. The Sadducees don’t believe in life after death – they are sad you see? But the Pharisees do – far I see.
So it’s the Sadducees who are teasing Jesus about life after death by describing a ridiculous situation involving a woman being widowed seven times so having 7 dead husbands – I’ve often thought Rhiannon could do with at least one more husband – She is very good at delegating tasks – But Jesus’ answer is more enigmatic suggesting the next world will not be like the present. However, he affirms the resurrection on the basis of the character of God – That he is God of the living and not the dead. And if we are created – we might reasonably ask – Why would be made for so short a time – With so little justice but with so great a capacity for reflection, for virtue and for love?
The passionate conviction that this world is not all there can be; That the suffering of this life; That the tremendous sacrifice endured by various generations is not for nothing; Is so boldly stated by Job: I know that my redeemer lives; And I shall see my God.
That is the faith that God is asking of us today: That despite collapsing governments and bridges, and the Arts in this country; In a world of floods and famine and war; Where nothing is certain, nothing is sure; We can still pick ourselves up from scratching our open sores, like Job, And proclaim “I know that my redeemer lives.” Which is to say: This is not for nothing. I will see justice. I will see mercy. I will be remembered, if only by God.
The hope of resurrection is more than just optimism. It is the belief in the transformative justice of God. That in the tragedies stealing hope in countries like Ukraine, India, Pakistan, East Africa and many other places, When Wales lose once again to the All Blacks, life is not just a sad tale told by an idiot; But that God works in us and through us; and while we may not see it in our own time, There is a redemption, there is a resurrection, And we may not understand the present difficulties of our age; But there is a future in which those struggles are remembered and overcome.
I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. Amen.