All Saints-tide

All Saints-tide

Now as we again approach the end of the Church Kalendar year it is also the time to reconsider the Church Year.Soon will come “Christ the King Sunday,” when we will emphasize just who is the One directing our lives and remember that we live in Holy Spirit and if we are in Jesus, it is impossible to separate us from that reality.The Church Year seems to culminate in the month of November with all the saints and all the souls up until Christ reigns in glory as the chorus says: forever and ever!The world in the past year has become a stormy place and the culmination of all things will come when God has deigned it so.It is good for us to remember that we are not on this journey alone, but we are accompanied by patriarchs and prophets, martyrs and apostles, kings and paupers in that great communion of the redeemed ushered on by Holy Spirit into the halls of eternity where Christ will be all in all!Our benevolent sovereign is under the time table of the Father waiting: “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” (I Thess. 4:16) This is called the “blessed hope.”Now the events that follow this and the context of the time in which it occurs vary among “theologians” whose books populate secular and sacred book sellers shelves. The events are called collectively: “the Apocalypse” meaning “hidden” events. The question is: where will you be on that day?The time is now to decide for eternity. Paul writes: “For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. "I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2) If we watch the news, talks of nuclear war, fuel and food shortages and the dissolution of all that we know and hold dear is threatened and the whole world shares in this sense of some great event or time is coming and Scripture says: “be ready.” Fr. Robert RMBagwell+ All Saints’-tide 2022, Savannah, Georgia.