while i can't hold him

you will

In May (2012) I graduated seminary. In June (2012) I began serving as Trinity's "interim pastor.

 

That means I have been in the game for nearly six months. As significant an amount of time as this is, it is also still not that long. What I am trying to say is that this is all still really new to me.

 

Everything sparkles.

Everything smells fresh.

Often I find I can't wait to put my hands on the different parts of church life.

All the celebrations and gatherings still catch my eye, still make me anxious with anticipation.

 

I worry about losing this wonder. Hopefully I never do.

 

Nevertheless, it is all very exciting.

 

To add to the wonder about getting to do all of this for my first time is the fact that after about a week and a half at Trinity my grandfather, Robert Cosgrove, died. That was a traumatic first month at Trinity.

In the midst of leaving everything, losing a loved one, the nights alone in a new place missing an important man in my life; I have a lot to be grateful for.

Robert was a very important man in my life. He helped teach me to drive. He taught me about compassionate politics. He taught me that breakfast is properly taken no earlier than 10 am. He taught me about true charity.

I am very indebted to him.

 

I was also blessed to be have been there when he passed, and I am blessed to have been able to spend some of his last days while he was healthy and lucid with him.

 

I remember the night he passed. Family coming from all over the country to be with him. My grandfather was in hospice, so he was in his home. He was surrounded by those he loved.

We surrounded him as he struggled with the throes of death. The gasping, thinking that he had died; and then suddenly another gasp.

 

...Until there wasn't.

Then, Robert, my grandfather, died.

One moment he was struggling for life, and another he was resting. One moment he was the man I loved so dearly, and another he was gone.

 

After he passed I remembered St. Paul's words, "Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye."

 

In one moment, Robert was struggling; in another he was resting. In a moment he changed. But I also know that Paul had an even more profound change in mind.

Paul is telling us that at the sound of the last trumpet; at the voice of the shepherd, my grandfather will hear his name and he will shake the dirt from his body; he will rise.

That is what All Saints' Sunday is about.

 

Since that night after Robert passed I've kept a picture of him nearby. There will be mornings when I look at that picture and think; he is gone.

I don't mean I think 'he is gone' in a pedestrian way. I mean I think about his absence in a concrete, physical, ontological way.

Robert is gone, and that absence physically changes things.

 

Robert is dead. He is gone. As long as I live, I will never see him again. That is a hard thing to truly internalize. I doubt I have come to grasp with that reality completely.

 

This Sunday, All Saints' Sunday, will be the first All Saints Service I lead. It will also be the first All Saints' service I say Robert's name aloud and hear a bell toll afterward.

 

This is all new.

As humans, death confounds us. There are so many ways to respond, so many ways to hide from the reality of death.

 

At its best what All Saints' Sunday does is not hide the fact that we will die. In fact, in many ways this day confronts us starkly with the fact that we will die, that those we love are gone.

All Saints' Sunday also confronts us with a promise: God is a God of the living. God, as revealed in the dead one on the cross, shows up to be the kind of God that even dares to hold a dead thing; and still love it.

All Saints' Sunday confronts us with an absurd idea, love is stronger than death. All Saints' Sunday confronts us with a story about a God who dares to love dead things, and story about how love revives dead things. All Saints' Sunday invites us to loose our fear of death.

 

 

This all feels fresh and new.

It also feels tender and special. 

 

My grandfather is dead, but God dares to love things that have died. Maybe this is enough. I won't hold Robert again, so God does for me.