01 November 2024

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season:
1, Friday 1 November 2024,
All Saints’ Day

Saints and Martyrs … the ten martyrs of the 20th century above the West Door of Westminster Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Today in the Church Calendar is All Saints’ Day (1 November), one of the 12 Principal Feasts of the Church. This celebration in the Church Calendar dates back to Pope Gregory III (731-741), who dedicated a chapel to All Saints in Saint Peter’s in Rome on 1 November to honour ‘the holy apostles and … all saints, martyrs, and confessors, … all the just made perfect who are at rest throughout the world.’

All Saints’ Festival is being celebrated, for example, in All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street London, this evening with High Mass at 6:30 pm, when the preacher is Bishop Stephen Conway of Lincoln, and the setting is Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai.

We move today from Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar to the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints’ Day and Advent. Before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Lazarus is raised from the Dead (John 11: 32-44) … a fresco in the Analpsi Church in Georgioupoli on the Greek island of Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 11: 32-44 (NRSVA):

32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ 37 But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’

38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ 40 Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’

Christ the Pantocrator surrounded by the saints in the Dome of the Church of Analipsi in Georgioupoli, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

November is a month when we traditionally remember the saints, the Communion of Saints, those we love and who are now gathered around the throne of God, those who have died and who we still love. All Saints’ Day on 1 November is one of the 12 Principal Feasts of the Church, and in many parts of the Anglican Communion tomorrow (2 November) is All Souls’ Day.

The first of the three lectionary readings for All Saints’ Day today is Revelation 7: 9-17:

9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’

11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, 12 singing,

‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honour
and power and might
be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’

13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?’ 14 I said to him, ‘Sir, you are the one that knows.’ Then he said to me, ‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

15 For this reason they are before the throne of God,
and worship him day and night within his temple,
and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
16 They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
17 for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

In the verses immediately before this reading, we are told:

‘Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal on their foreheads.’

4 And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the people of Israel:

5 From the tribe of Judah twelve thousand sealed,
from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Gad twelve thousand,
6 from the tribe of Asher twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand,
7 from the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Levi twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand,
8 from the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand sealed. (Revelation 7: 3-8)

As I said in a reflection on All Saints’ Day last year, I love the clear implication that the salvation of humanity is directly and intricately intertwined with the command, ‘Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees.’

The number 144,000 is a natural number. It is significant in many religious traditions and belief systems. The number 144,000 appears three times in the Book of Revelation, in this passage (Revelation 7: 3-8), and in two other places: Revelation 14: 1, and Revelation 14: 3-5.

The number 12 is used throughout the Bible to symbolise completeness, perfection, and God’s power. Think for a moment of the 12 tribes of Israel or 12 disciples of Christ. There are also 12 patriarchs from Seth to Noah; 12 patriarchs from Shem to Jacob; 12 spies led the way into the Promised Land; there were 12 judges from Othniel to Samuel; and King David appointed 24 groups of 12 (a total of 288) to lead music of praise in the temple (I Chronicles 25).

Exodus 39: 14 recalls there Aaron’s breastplate had 12 precious stones, ‘corresponding to the names of the sons of Israel; they were like signets, each engraved with its name, for the twelve tribe.’

The figure 12 also has symbolic significance in the New Testament. Christ promises the disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’ (Matthew 19: 28).

Saint Mark’s Gospels recalls how in one hour, Jesus heals a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years and then goes immediately to restore to life a girl who is 12 years old. The first woman is older, with a continual flow of blood, losing hr life blood; the young girl is given back her life blood and comes to life. Both touch Christ and after 12 years are restored to new life (Mark 5: 25-42).

In the Book of Revelation, Christ makes a similar promise to some who will come out of the last age of the church, known as Laodicea (which means ‘judging the people’): ‘To the one who conquers I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne’ (Revelation 3: 21).

Revelation describes two groups of 12 (a total of 24) elders who sit around the throne of God, representing the 12 tribes in the Hebrew Bible and the 12 apostles in the New Testament (Revelation 4: 4). One vision in Revelation tells how a ‘great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars’ (Revelation 12: 1). The 12 stars above the woman’s head are a symbol of the leadership of the church (I Corinthians 11: 10).

That great city, the holy Jerusalem … had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel … the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God … has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites … And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb (see Revelation 21: 10-14).

The foundation stones of the New Jerusalem (see Revelation 21: 19-20) appear to be identical to the 12 precious stones on Aaron’s breastplate (Exodus 39: 14).

The figurative use of the whole number 1,000 is also found throughout the Bible. For example, God increases the number of the Israelites 1,000 times (Deuteronomy 1: 11); God keeps the covenant to 1,000 generations (Deuteronomy 7: 9); and God owns the cattle on 1,000 hills (Psalm 50: 10). Other examples are found in Exodus 20: 6; and II Samuel 18: 12; Psalm 84: 10; and Isaiah 60: 22.

The number 12 becomes a symbol of totality, and when it is squared and multiplied by 1,000 it acquires more emphasis. With 1,000 as a multiplier of 12, the numbers 12,000 and 144,000 are imbued with a particular significance that is interpreted variously in Christianity. Some take the numbers in the Book of Revelation to be symbolic, representing all God's people throughout history in the heavenly Church.

Even in conversation, I often find any discussion of the number 144,000 is met by references to the belief among Jehovah’s Witnesses that exactly 144,000 faithful Christians from the year 33 AD until the present day will be resurrected to heaven as immortal spirit beings to spend eternity with God and Christ, serving as king-priests for 1,000 years. They believe all other people accepted by God will have an opportunity to live forever in a restored paradise on earth.

Popular interpretations of the number 144,00, from Jehovah’s Witnesses to literalist evangelicals and fundamentalists, miss out on the interesting poetical and mathematical richness and significance of the number 144,000.

I try to imagine how many people are needed to make up 144,000 people in any one place at any one time. When I was working as a journalist, there were conflicting claims from the police and organisers about the number of people on the streets at any protest or march. To arrive at an impartial estimate, you would count how many people passed one point in a minute, and then multiply that figure by the number of minutes it took the marchers to pass that particular place.

Of course, adjustments had to be made. There are always bottlenecks that hold up a protest for minutes on end, and marches always have gaps and trail off at the end. But, with those allowances, it was a fairly accurate way of making an impartial count.

If the Book of Revelation is finding a poetic way of describing 144,000 people passing through one particular point over one 24-hour period, that is a vast number: 6,000 people every hour, 100 people every minute, 2 or 3 people every second.

If the Book of Revelation is describing two lots of 144,000 people – one group of 144,000 standing on Mount Zion, and a second group of 144,000 before the throne – then we are talking about 288,000 people. In a 24-hour day, that would involve 12,000 people passing by every hour, or 200 every minute in a day.

The numbers 12, 60 and 144,000 are part of our cultural heritage dating back to Ancient Near East or Middle East societies. Sumerians looked to the heavens when they Invented the system of time we use to this day. It may seem curious that we divide the hours into 60 minutes and the days into 24 hours.

We use a multiple 12 rather than 10 because when the ancient Sumerians were inventing time, they did not operate on a decimal (base-10) or duodecimal (base-12) system but a sexagesimal (base-60) system.

For those ancient Sumerian innovators, who first divided the movements of the heavens into countable intervals, 60 was the perfect number. The number 60 can be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30 equal parts. Moreover, ancient astronomers believed there were 360 days in a year, a number that 60 fits neatly into six times.

The Sumerian Empire may not have lasted for long. But, for more than 5,000 years, the world has continued to use its calculations when it comes delineating time.

In a burst of imagination once again on All Saints’ Day, I am thinking of the figure 144,000 in the Book of Revelation as a poetic adaptation of Ancient Near East mathematical philosophy, and 144,000 are invited into the Kingdom of God, every day since, say the year 1 CE, for the past 2024 years, the total of people involved is 291,456,000. And if there two groups of 144,000 people in the Book of Revelation, that number doubles to 582,912,000.

And if the work of salvation is retrospective, going back in time as well as forward in time, perhaps that number could be doubled to at least 1,165,824,000, but probably much, much more.

That is more people than the number of people living today.

That is more people than the number of people who have ever lived on earth.
The UN estimates that the world population in mid-2024 is almost 8.2 billion (8,184,581,231).

In research for the National Library of Medicine some years ago, C Haub asked, ‘How many people have ever lived on earth?’ Assuming a constant growth rate and birth rates of 80 per 1,000 through to 1 AD, 60 per 1,000 from 2 AD to 1750, and the low 30s per 1,000 by modern times, he concluded 105 billion people have lived on earth, of whom 5.5% are alive today.

An earlier date for the appearance of human life on earth would raise the numbers. But any figures we come to are surpassed excessively by any number of people we could ever imagine ever alive on earth.

I am overwhelmed.

God’s love embraces more people than I can ever imagine, or could ever possibly exist in time, past, present or future. God’s love is beyond measure, is beyond limit, and the saints we celebrate and rejoice with today are beyond any number I can imagine or calculation you or I can make.

All Saints’ Church in Yelvertoft, Northamptshire, was connected with the Comberford family for about a century … Henry Comberford of Lichfield Cathedral was the rector in 1546-1560 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 1 November 2024, All Saints’ Day):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘All Saints’ Day’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by the Revd Dr Duncan Dormor, General Secretary, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 1 November 2024, All Saints’ Day) invites us to pray:

We give thanks for the communion of saints across time and space and for all who have been sources of inspiration and encouragement to us in our Christian faith.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have knit together your elect
in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord:
grant us grace so to follow your blessed saints
in all virtuous and godly living
that we may come to those inexpressible joys
that you have prepared for those who truly love you;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God, the source of all holiness and giver of all good things:
may we who have shared at this table
as strangers and pilgrims here on earth
be welcomed with all your saints
to the heavenly feast on the day of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of holiness,
your glory is proclaimed in every age:
as we rejoice in the faith of your saints,
inspire us to follow their example
with boldness and joy;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

All Saints’ Church, Calverton, near Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire, dates from the 12th century and was rebuilt in 1818 and 1824 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org