All Saint’s Sunday, November 5, 2023
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
Revelation 7:9-17
After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Long ago, late at night, I turned on the car radio to stay awake and was suddenly spellbound by music I had never heard before. It was Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 or “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw. That music took me on a journey, from sorrow to joy, from unknowing to revelation. When it was concluded, the announcer said it was the most popular piece of classical music in the world that year, selling more than a million copies. That was the first of many listenings for me. And all these years later, the music still moves me profoundly.
The book of Revelation is another kind of music, also full of yearning. But it’s strange to our ears because it’s the kind of music we don’t listen to anymore. We don’t understand much of its apocalyptic imagery, its strange cast of characters, its odd vocabulary. Yet it retains a certain power because it serves as a bridge between the painful reality of this present moment and our fondest hopes for a world made right.
The original recipients of this strange prophecy were the early Christians of Asia Minor, in modern day Turkey. They were suffering an intense persecution because they insisted that Jesus Christ was Lord and therefore, the emperor was not. That was the highest form of treason in a society that worshipped the emperor. And because of that, some of these early Christians had been martyred. Others, fearing a similar fate, had defected. And those still standing were on the verge of losing all hope.
But one day a prophet named John, who had been exiled as a political prisoner, sent them a letter about a vision he had concerning how their story and the human story ends. To these people in pain and from a man in pain, John declared that the human story ends in hope. And not some sentimental notion that everything will somehow be all right in the end. The book of Revelation is a full-throated aria about God’s ability to conquer death and right the world. - And even though we do not know how that can be in a world as senseless and violent as this one; somehow that message calls to us like a siren song. It repeats the refrain that life is more than this and that we are destined for something good and beautiful and holy. That message calls to us, even though it makes no logical sense.
In his book The Tacit Dimension author Michael Polanyi writes about something called tacit knowledge, that is that knowledge that is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalizing it. Polanyi writes: “I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell.”
We can know more than we can tell. And so, when words fail, as they so often do, we turn to music with its ability to unlock hope and joy and ecstasy and meaning even in the face of death.
In 1995 my friend Richard was dying of AIDS. Richard was Jewish and not particularly religious, but his approaching death made him introspective. He started to ponder the meaning of his life and what might come for him after death. And as he did, he began to pepper me with questions like: what did I think happened to people when they died? Was heaven real? Did I think he would go there if he took his life before the disease did?
Now maybe you think that a pastor does or should have all the answers to those questions. But death has a way of leaving all of us speechless before its mystery.
One day, when I was thinking about Richard and his questions, I suddenly had a strong and unbidden thought: I should lend him my copy of the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. I had this sense that the music might speak to him in ways that I could not.
A few weeks later, when he gave it back to me, he told me that he had wept most of the way through it, finally allowing himself to grieve his early death and all those things he would never get to do. He told me that he had found in that ethereal music a strange kind of comfort. He told me that the music spoke to him. And I remember that Richard now seemed at peace, in a way he had not been before. And all these years later, I am convinced that the music made a bridge for him between the present and what he hoped for; between what he knew and what he could tell.
On this day when remember all those whom we have loved and have gone before us, music allows us to connect with a knowing; truth that is beyond our ability to tell it. And thus, it has always been. Saint John said it like this in the book of Revelation: “And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing…”
We do know more than we can tell. And so, we hope. And so, we yearn. And so, we sing.
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
Revelation 7:9-17
After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Long ago, late at night, I turned on the car radio to stay awake and was suddenly spellbound by music I had never heard before. It was Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 or “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw. That music took me on a journey, from sorrow to joy, from unknowing to revelation. When it was concluded, the announcer said it was the most popular piece of classical music in the world that year, selling more than a million copies. That was the first of many listenings for me. And all these years later, the music still moves me profoundly.
The book of Revelation is another kind of music, also full of yearning. But it’s strange to our ears because it’s the kind of music we don’t listen to anymore. We don’t understand much of its apocalyptic imagery, its strange cast of characters, its odd vocabulary. Yet it retains a certain power because it serves as a bridge between the painful reality of this present moment and our fondest hopes for a world made right.
The original recipients of this strange prophecy were the early Christians of Asia Minor, in modern day Turkey. They were suffering an intense persecution because they insisted that Jesus Christ was Lord and therefore, the emperor was not. That was the highest form of treason in a society that worshipped the emperor. And because of that, some of these early Christians had been martyred. Others, fearing a similar fate, had defected. And those still standing were on the verge of losing all hope.
But one day a prophet named John, who had been exiled as a political prisoner, sent them a letter about a vision he had concerning how their story and the human story ends. To these people in pain and from a man in pain, John declared that the human story ends in hope. And not some sentimental notion that everything will somehow be all right in the end. The book of Revelation is a full-throated aria about God’s ability to conquer death and right the world. - And even though we do not know how that can be in a world as senseless and violent as this one; somehow that message calls to us like a siren song. It repeats the refrain that life is more than this and that we are destined for something good and beautiful and holy. That message calls to us, even though it makes no logical sense.
In his book The Tacit Dimension author Michael Polanyi writes about something called tacit knowledge, that is that knowledge that is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalizing it. Polanyi writes: “I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell.”
We can know more than we can tell. And so, when words fail, as they so often do, we turn to music with its ability to unlock hope and joy and ecstasy and meaning even in the face of death.
In 1995 my friend Richard was dying of AIDS. Richard was Jewish and not particularly religious, but his approaching death made him introspective. He started to ponder the meaning of his life and what might come for him after death. And as he did, he began to pepper me with questions like: what did I think happened to people when they died? Was heaven real? Did I think he would go there if he took his life before the disease did?
Now maybe you think that a pastor does or should have all the answers to those questions. But death has a way of leaving all of us speechless before its mystery.
One day, when I was thinking about Richard and his questions, I suddenly had a strong and unbidden thought: I should lend him my copy of the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. I had this sense that the music might speak to him in ways that I could not.
A few weeks later, when he gave it back to me, he told me that he had wept most of the way through it, finally allowing himself to grieve his early death and all those things he would never get to do. He told me that he had found in that ethereal music a strange kind of comfort. He told me that the music spoke to him. And I remember that Richard now seemed at peace, in a way he had not been before. And all these years later, I am convinced that the music made a bridge for him between the present and what he hoped for; between what he knew and what he could tell.
On this day when remember all those whom we have loved and have gone before us, music allows us to connect with a knowing; truth that is beyond our ability to tell it. And thus, it has always been. Saint John said it like this in the book of Revelation: “And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing…”
We do know more than we can tell. And so, we hope. And so, we yearn. And so, we sing.
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