BUD FRANK
CARL RASK
HARLAN LEISTIKOW
ROGER TORGERSEN
JODI HAYNE
JAMES HANSON
FLORENCE PROSSER
As part of our All Saints celebration, on Sunday we will toll the bell once for each of these now deceased men and women.
Not only will we remember these seven, they’ll be assisting me with the sermon. How so? Each has taught me a thing or two about living by faith. Like Abel (Hebrews 11:4), Bud, Carl, Harlan, Roger, Jodi, James, and Florence still speak to me, even though they are dead. During our service I will give each of them a chance to talk to you.
I’m not the only one to whom the dead still speak; Martin Luther was another. Bernard of Clairvaux was one that he listened to the most. In his commentary on Galatians, Luther noted:
St. Bernard was one of the best of the medieval saints. He lived a chaste and holy life. But when it came to dying he did not trust in his chaste life for salvation. He prayed: “I have lived a wicked life. But You, Lord Jesus, have given heaven to me. First, because You are the Son of God. Secondly, because You have purchased heaven for me by Your suffering and death. You give heaven to me, not because I earned it, but because You has earned it for me.”
As I listen to Bud, Carl, Harlan, Roger, Jodi, James, and Florence this week, I’m also reflecting on something that I read earlier this morning in The Plough Daily Dig:
“We come to cemeteries because they remind us of God; they help us make sense of our lives and our moments in time. The God of the universe has a plan, and looking upward to him keeps us grounded. But the slowly bending arc of eternity can also provide such a long perspective that we feel infinitesimal and insignificant. What draws me to lift the latch, open the gate, wander the distance is what lies at my feet. It is the lingering sacred scent of departed souls that gives me perspective; it roots my feet here on earth while helping me sense the presence of these men and women who, according to the Christian teaching of the communion of saints, remain very much alive and connected to us, the living.”
You can read Dori Moody’s entire essay: