November 3, 2023

The Day of the Dead, All Saints Day, and Daylight Savings

This week’s reflection begins with a Public Service Announcement: Daylight Savings Time ends on Saturday. Please remember that the hour you lost on April 2nd is given back to you this weekend. If you don’t set your clock back, you may well get to church an hour early. Please feel free to put the coffee on while you wait.

On a more serious note, the fact that we are currently on Daylight Savings Time hides the fact that days have already become much shorter. We will notice it more next week when we turn the clocks back and turn our lights on earlier. In the centuries before Daylight Savings Time and electric lights, the lack of daylight was very noticeable about the end of October, especially the further north one went. By this time in the Northern Hemisphere, most food had been harvested, leaves had fallen, and the weather was turning colder, as well having less daylight. It looked like things were dying. So from the Americas to Europe, November became a month of remembering the dead. An ancient Aztec example of this is currently having quite a resurgence in North America, Dia De Los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead. A similar commemoration of the dead developed in Europe. As these lands became Christianized and the celebration of All Saints and All Souls became Christian alternatives to these commemorations.

For centuries it has been common in the Northern Hemisphere for late autumn and early winter to focus on the supernatural, the macabre, and the threat they contain for us mortals. In response, the Christian Church has offered the promise of Christ, who has conquered, sin, death, and all evil. So we celebrate that promise by remembering with hope and thanksgiving those who have died, reminding we who are living of the central hope of the Christian faith: the resurrection of the dead and the communion of the saints. For this reason, we welcome you to bring a photo of your loved ones who have died and remember them as saints redeemed and resurrected by our Lord. You may put their photo on one of the tables by our altar before the service. Later in our service, you will be invited to come forward to light a candle in their honor, remembering that though dead, their memory on earth and their life with God continues.

May God’s promises, and the hopes they afford us all, be a light that comforts us in these dark days.

Christus victor! Christ is victorious! Amen.

~ Pastor Todd