I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.  Each week we profess this third portion of the Apostles’ Creed, casually breezing through strange-sounding doctrinal statements, perhaps missing just how connected they are.  We take the bread and the cup of Holy Communion, knowing it means something deep, perhaps missing how connected we are in this act.  At Halloween and All Saints, we relish in the delight of the changing season, the cooler weather and beautiful leaves, the nostalgia of pumpkins and costumes and Charlie Brown specials, perhaps missing just how our lives connect to the saints of old and those yet to come.

In 1758, John Wesley preached “The Great Assize” to court officials his most important sermon on the subject of God’s final judgment. He commended those who had authority in this life to provide justice in the courts: remember that you who judge men and women will one day stand to be judged yourselves.  What we have done to the least in this world, we have done to Christ.  Christ regularly told parables of keeping watch, for we know not when the Son of Man will come.  On some level, that can surely mean we can’t know when we will die, or when we will meet our maker. But on the level of Matthew 25, it can also surely mean that we can’t know when we will meet our maker today, in the lives of the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick and imprisoned.  For Wesley, the call to holy living is a call to look for Christ everywhere, to find in the communion of saints the very presence of God: who made us in God’s image and redeemed us by Christ’s blood.

Protestants are often skeptical of the term “saints,” and hesitant of the idea that anyone would pray to the saints.  The common argument is that Christ is our mediator, we don’t have to go to anyone else.  That’s true. But have you ever shared a prayer request with your friends? Have you ever asked your pastor to pray for you? Have you ever admired someone whose faith was stronger, and sought to spend time getting to know them, hoping that you might be shaped by their lives as iron sharpens iron? Do you believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting? Then maybe it’s not so crazy to ask your dead aunt Mary or Mary the Mother of Christ to pray for you in your hour of need, just like you’d ask your living friends to do.  Hebrews 12 tells us we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, those holy dead who rejoice in the presence of Christ are spurring us on to finish the race.  We belong to that community across space and time, connected by the Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead.

It’s pretty cool when you think about it.  It’s the whole premise of Wesley Bros Comics: on some metaphysical level, the entire span of saints are existing here with us right now in Christ.  It’s a mystery worthy of our wonder, and just crazy enough to deserve a little humor.