Also known as All Hallow’s Day, Hallowmas, Feast of All Saints, or the Solemnity of All Saints is a distinctly Christian festival celebrated in honor of all the saints, known and unknown. It is celebrated on November 1 by the Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Church, Methodist Church and the Lutheran Church among other Protestant churches. Christian celebration of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day stems from a belief that there is a powerful spiritual bond between those in heaven (also known as the Church Triumphant), and the living (those we call the “Church Militant”). In Roman Catholic theology, the day commemorates all those who have attained the vision of Heaven.

“Jesus is deeply mysterious. This isn’t just because, like any figure of ancient history, we don’t now as much about him as we might like. Jesus is mysterious because what we do know—what our evidence encourages us to see as the core of who he was and what he did—is so unlike what we know about anybody else that we are forced to ask, as people evidently did at the time: who, then is this? Jesus puzzled people then, and he puzzles us still.” . (“The Three Puzzles”, Simply Jesus, N. T. Wright, p. 9)

Why would some consider Jesus mysterious? You may think that you know enough about Jesus to form your own opinion, and if that is the case, I give you a lot of credit. Me, on the other hand, I continue to read and research Jesus because I want to know more about this mysterious “Son of G-d”. But getting to know Jesus will require getting to know the context in which he lived, including his worldview and the Jewish “spiritual” worldview. Each carries their own effort – both of which there is plenty of written material to review. We know who the Roman Emperor was at the time Jesus lived: Tiberius – we know who the Roman prefect of Judea and Idumaea was when Jesus was tried and convicted: Pontius Pilate – we know who the Jewish Tetrarch of Galilee was when Jesus was tried and convicted: Herod Antipas — and we know who the “high priest” was at the time of his death: Caiaphas. These are historical facts.

Things really become mysterious with Jesus when he appears seemingly “out of nowhere”, somewhere in his thirties, to do quite remarkable things, which led the Roman and Jewish authorities to send him to his death on a cross, seemingly as a way to keep him from claiming the title “Son of G-d”. Yet we today, as have so many over the centuries, call Jesus “Son of G-d”. They never saw anyone do the things Jesus did – we have not seen anyone do the things Jesus did. But the more I study, pray, and discern the works of Jesus, the more I appreciate the mystery, the majesty, and the love of Jesus.

Pastor Dave

All Hallows Eve begins the three-day observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed. It is widely believed that many Halloween traditions originated from ancient Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain; that such festivals may have had pagan roots; and that Samhain itself was Christianized as Halloween by the early church. Some believe, however, that Halloween began solely as a Christian holiday, separate from ancient festivals like Samhain.

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵ (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶ Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” John 1:14-18

“We are…in a curious position when we try to place Jesus in his proper historical context. We know a very great deal about the short, final period of his life and hardly anything about the earlier period. Jesus himself wrote nothing, so far as we know. The sources we have for his public career—the four gospels in the New Testament—are dense, complex, and multilayered. They are works of art (of a sort) in their own right. But it is quite impossible to explain their very existence, let alone their detailed content, unless Jesus was himself not only a figure of real, solid history, but also pretty much the sort of person they make him out to  be. If he wasn’t….he’s not worth bothering with.” (“Getting Inside the Gospels”, Simply Jesus,  N. T. Wright, p. 7)

Jesus was probably born around 4 BCE, according to most biblical scholars. The people who invented the present system for dating our world got it almost right. He grew up in Nazareth in northern Palestine. His mother was related to a priestly line, and her son, Jesus, had a cousin named John. His mother’s husband, Joseph, was from the ancient royal family, the family of King David, of the tribe of Judah. So we know in the course of history when Jesus walked the earth. But Christians still believe that Jesus is alive in the present and that he will play a role in the future to which we are all heading. Still, he is the same, as one Christian writer so eloquently puts it: “yesterday, today and forever.” (Heb 13:8)

Therefore I ask the question, what is Jesus to you today and what will Jesus be to you tomorrow? Millions of Christians today call Jesus “Lord” – while millions or more tend to ignore him. Yet, Jesus pops up all over the place, no matter how much our world tries to deny him. Imagine, though, if Jesus had written something. Imagine if we had texts that Jesus not only spoke, but he himself penned. There are many personal and communal issues that would have benefited from some comment from Jesus – but we have no record of what Jesus thought of them – issues like sexuality — and his definition of the word “is”, like when he said “This is my body”. But that is another devotion for another time.

Perhaps one day we will find some letter purported to have been written by Jesus. Perhaps we will, one day, have a text that not only reports something Jesus said, but are authentic thoughts written by Jesus. Imagine. Thank goodness we do not need such a document trail to believe that Jesus was, is and will be the same to us “yesterday, today and forever.”

Pastor Dave