"Disciples Affirm Resurrection Hope" (November 2, 2025 Sermon)
/Text: Ephesians 1:11-23
Content Warning: Suicide
“Pastor Stephen, where can I find hope?” If there's a common theme in my pastoral conversations with many of you over the past year, that’s it. "Where can I find hope?" As we gather on this All Saints Sunday, we mourn those we've lost over the past year. In a few minutes, we will ring bells to honor ten members of this church who have died in the last 12 months. We will ring bells for Peg Lukens, Bobbe Jackson, Ed Hendricks, Nat Bingaman, Carolyn Sherrick, Doris Mengel, Edith Phillips, Burl Hull, Rick Cromer, and Vernon Mull. Each of these beloveds was a saint who has joined the heavenly chorus, and is now the cloud of witnesses cheering us on as we run this race of faith. So today, we sing a requiem for them. But requiems are complex things. They are no simple matter when many of us feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the world’s grief.
It makes me think of one of my favorite musicals, Dear Evan Hansen. The story revolves around a socially isolated young man in high school who becomes entangled in a lie that inadvertently helps him connect with others in a way he has longed for. One of my favorite songs from the musical is called “Requiem,” mainly sung by Evan Hansen’s love interest, Zoe, as she processes her grief after her brother Connor’s tragic suicide. In the song, she and her two parents sing a requiem for Connor. Notably, they sing this separately, in different parts of the stage, which beautifully highlights the isolating nature of grief. Ironically, each family member sings “Requiem” by expressing that they cannot sing a requiem due to their complex feelings following Connor’s death. Zoe talks about struggling with mourning Connor while also feeling anger over the harm he caused her. Her parents, Cynthia and Larry, express their anger at Connor for throwing away everything they gave him through their love. So together, yet apart, these three family members sing their requiem with the refrain, “I will sing no requiem tonight.”
I believe most of us understand that feeling. The sensation of being overwhelmed by grief and yet simultaneously numb. I’ve seen this recurring theme in many pastoral conversations I’ve had with many of you over the past year or so. “Pastor Stephen, where can I find hope? I feel so numb. I feel so helplessly overwhelmed by my own personal losses, and at the same time, I feel numb because of the larger societal grieving happening because of [gestures vaguely] all the things.” So, we gather on this day to mourn those who have been lost, but we also gather on every All Saints Sunday to hold that grief in one hand and the hope of the resurrection in the other. Holding those two things together is messy business, y’all, make no mistake about it. But it’s part of what it means to live as a Christian.
In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul speaks of this hope that we have “on” Christ. That preposition is a curious thing. Notice, he doesn’t speak of the hope we have ‘in” Christ, but the hope we have on Christ. It’s as if Christ is the “sure” foundation upon which everything depends. “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand,” Edward Mote once wrote in his 1834 hymn, “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less.” Yes, friends, as Christians, we don’t place our hope “on” the grieving circumstances of the world. Not on any power or principality. Not on a political ideology or any person who comes along promising that he alone can fix things. Not on money, or privilege, or success, or followers on social media. Those things are fleeting, friends, and each one, in time, will disappoint.
No, we gather to declare Christ as the sure foundation of our faith. And the key to that foundation is something remarkable called the Resurrection. Paul describes it this way: “God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, authority, power, and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”
You hear that, y’all? “Far above all rule, authority, power, and dominion, above every name that is named.” That’s the totality of Christ’s resurrection. And that’s where we find our hope. Not in you. Not in me. Not in any earthly person who promises salvation in return for unquestioned loyalty (and there have been many of them throughout history!). No, friends, our loyalty is to Christ, the sure foundation. And that loyalty gives us the courage to preach resurrection in a world that preaches violence. It provides us with the audacity to sing about that “sure foundation” when so much of the world around us feels so…unstable.
And so, with every bell we ring today, with the reading of each of the ten names we’ll surrender to God, along with the many others no doubt on our minds, we sing a requiem. A messy, complicated requiem. For no simple requiem can be sung in a world as broken as ours. But requiems aren’t just about expressing grief. Requiems are also about surrendering our loved ones into the story of Christ’s resurrection, a story promised to each and every one of us.
Most classic sung requiems end with a section called “In Paridisum,” which is the Latin phrase for “in paradise.” It sings as such in the Latin,
In Paradisum deducant Angeli in tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem. Chorus Angelorum te suscipit et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam habeas requiem.
In English, it reads: May the angels receive them in Paradise, at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem. There may the chorus of angels receive thee, and with Lazarus, once a beggar, may thou have eternal rest.
And so, friends, remember this day—whether you can sing a requiem unfettered or whether the words get stuck in your throat—that eternal rest is promised to each of us and is, indeed, fulfilled today for all whose loss we mourn. Through the power of Christ’s resurrection, may God grant them eternal rest, and may we hold onto hope on the Risen One, who “has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”
In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s children, say: Amen.