The Veil is Thin

One of my most favorite Sundays of the year is All Saints Day which is celebrated the first Sunday of November. During this morning’s service, there came a point when people began calling out the names of loved ones who had died in the past year. It’s always such a profound and solemn moment. What was different about this morning, however, was the activity going on next door in the fellowship hall in our children’s worship service. Normally, their singing and dancing takes place about the same time ours does and so there’s little distraction. But today was different. Just as we finished praying and it got quiet, readying people to call out names, the music in the next room began. I thought to myself, “Oh, no. Why now? This is really going to be distracting and ruin the mood of the moment.” But as I sat there, my own mood began to change.

A number of years ago, my pastor at the time preached on the thin veil that separated those of us here and those who had gone on ahead. He gave the analogy of two tables; maybe one in the breakfast room and the other in the dining room. The people at the two tables are out of sight of each other, but they can hear the laughter and talk going on at the other table in the next room. That image was rich as well as comforting to me at the time for I had just lost my own great aunt to death. I could imagine her laughing around the table with her parents, brothers and their wives – my great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Though I knew it was the children next door worshiping, as I sat there this morning with name after name being called out by those whose lives have been touched by death in the past year, for a moment I believed it just might be the saints gathered around the throne who I heard. It was a powerful moment for me, and so I just listened – and worshiped.