Vicar’s sermon: All Souls’-tide service 2024

I spend more time than most people stood in the church porch. Sometimes I’m there, ringing the bell before the Wednesday morning service, or I have arranged to meet a family to walk through a baptism or a wedding ceremony. Stood in the porch you can’t help but read the memorials: they are really interesting. The biggest is just to the left of the doors as you leave: it is in memory of John Hullock, a judge and member of the body that ran the country’s finances before there was such a thing as the Chancellor of the Exchequer: he lived at the bottom of The Bank.
There are quite a few Watsons. There were two sides to the Watson family tree. One set of Watsons were based at Spring Lodge, the property to the left of Parson’s Lonnen as you come down the lane to the Vicarage. Colonel Watson ran the solicitors over the road (in living memory) before it became Tilley Bailey and Irvine. The other Watsons lived on Thorngate but between them we have the Watsons to thank for the church clock and more than one of our stained-glass windows.
These church memorials started life inside the main body of the church but were moved into the porch at the great restoration of the church between 1868 and 1870. Only the great and the good were able to keep their memorial stones: some folk are still remembered in the lozenges you can see in the church floor but no doubt, some of the older memorials were lost. Out in the churchyard it’s noticeable that the old stones are wearing away, the writing on them gradually becoming illegible. Thankfully, such words as could be read were recorded before the millennium by the North Yorkshire and Cleveland record society: a gift to those seeking to find the resting place of relatives.
I like memorial stones. I like wandering round old churchyards reading about those who lie there, wondering about their lives, wondering how parents could manage the loss of so many children in previous centuries, or how society could cope with the death of so many young women in childbirth. Memorial stones offer a sense of permanence don’t they? Names, carved into rock, not to be forgotten. But this permanence is illusory. A name is preserved but the person has been lost. A generation passes, and then another and there are no flowers being left on a grave…no one to remember or to mourn, no one to fil out the name with memories of the life it carried.
I realise that’s a difficult thought on this night of all nights. Everyone here has come to remember: we’re here because we don’t want to forget, we don’t want to lose the love and connection we had with a parent, a partner or a child who died this year or, perhaps, some many years ago. But we are here because we share a sense of loss. Death takes so much from us. It is unhealthy to pretend otherwise.
My dad, who died just a few years ago, was a great storyteller with a wonderfully naughty sense of humour. Like many retired men he joined Probus and would entertain his friends with his talks. He’d then take his talks on tour with local WI groups and the like: ‘My part in Kruschev’s downfall’ was a favourite. Dad did his National service with the Hussars in Carlisle – I don’t think President Kruschev had much to fear from him playing his bandsman’s cornet. Another talk that went down well he entitled ‘It all turns to dross’. Dad lived out pretty much all of his life in Hereford. This talk enabled him to share memories about how Hereford had changed. The school he went to: now Council Offices. The firms he worked for: out of business or sold out. Everything changed. Nothing staying the same: ‘it all turns to dross’. Those of a similar age to him loved the talk, loved hearing the old memories, calling to mind things and people long gone.
Bereavement, the loss of a life partner (someone close) brings huge change. All of us face it at some time or other. Even when a death has been expected, a long life well lived to its very end, the death of that special person shakes us. Bible writers speak of grief as feeling like eating dust and ashes: all life, all joy, taken from us.
So where is there hope? When the memorials fade and our memories are lost, where is there hope?
There is a story told in the Venerable Bede’s writings of a discussion taking place about the new religion (Christianity) in the great hall of the ancient Northumbrian King Edwin in the year 627AD: one of the King’s advisors said this:
It seems to me thus, dearest king, that this present life of men on earth, in comparison to the time that is unknown to us, [is] as if you were sitting at your dinner tables with your noblemen, warmed in the hall, and it rained and it snowed and it hailed and one sparrow came from outside and quickly flew through the hall and it came in through one door and went out through the other. Lo! During the time that he was inside, he was not touched by the storm of the winter. But that is the blink of an eye and the least amount of time, but he immediately comes from winter into winter again. So then this life of men appears for a short amount of time; what came before or what follows after, we do not know. Therefore, if this new lore brings anything more certain and more wise, it is worthy of that that we follow it.’
We will never know whether this story was based in a real historical event but it still speaks to us about some of the most important questions of life itself. Who are we, why are we here, what lies ahead of us when we die?

For many people this life is all that there is. There is nothing to hope for, just a life to be celebrated or sadness to be mourned. If this world is all there is then where do we find its purpose or meaning: how do we deal with Death. Does life have no meaning and does everything just ‘turn to dross’? The Christian faith that draws us together in this ‘great hall’ this evening tells a different story. The Christian gospel says that our lives are a gift from God and they find their meaning and purpose in Him. We were known ‘before the foundation of the world’ and our purpose is to glorify Him forever.

As Father Darren said the other week at Revd John Moore’s funeral service, when each one of us is born something comes into the word that has never been seen before and will never be seen again. Each of us unique. Each one of us (with gifts of hand and intellect and heart) can reflect something of our maker. Each one of us is capable of loving and caring, of serving and giving. We mourn that these gifts are no longer able to be enjoyed in the same way now our loved ones have gone but we also take heart that beyond the shelter of this ‘great hall’ there is a love that is stronger than ours, stronger than Death. This love has birthed us, nurtured us and accompanies us in life and through death. ‘The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases’, we read, ‘it is new every morning, great is thy faithfulness O Lord.’ Everything else may fail but God is faithful, God is an eternal presence for those of us left behind.

And as our New Testament reading said: By his great mercy God has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.’ These words tell us that there is a future. There is a hope to be lived from and a hope to be lived into that can sustain and encourage us. We are loved from before time to the end of eternity.
As our tears speak of the love we have for our dear ones, this is the love we celebrate this evening. The unbreakable love of God that says ‘It’s OK. I am here. Do not be afraid. All is well.’