All Hallows (Christian and Wizard)
Happy All Saints Day! I taught a lesson in my high school youth group on resurrection and All Saints Day this weekend. Some interesting facts that many people don't know:
1) In Judeo-Christian belief, the soul and body are not separable. When we die, our souls chill with our bodies (its like the best nap you could imagine) until Jesus comes back and Resurrects us all together.
2) Even though this is what we technically believe, we still have beliefs about dead Saints being present with us (the idea of immortal souls being separate from the body comes from Greek philosophy).
My Church History teacher told us that Halloween traditions come from pagan festivals recognizing the start of the dark half of the year, when they believed that the world of the dead overlapped with the living. Night was a scary time during the ancient world, when they didn't have much artificial light. In the midst of this, the Church starts celebrating All Hallows Day or All Saints Day, as if to say "Bring it! We don't need to protect ourselves from evil spirits! We have the witness and the protection of the Christians who have passed on."
So this is a little problematic. We believe that the souls can't be separate from the bodies, but that the souls are present with us when we celebrate communion, etc. (Remember my World Communion Sunday note?) I mused over this with my youth group, and here is my theory. When the Resurrection happens, we are raised and enter God's presence. So even though my Grama is dead, in the future resurrection reality, she theoretically knows everything I've done to this point, and will do from here on. Even if she isn't hovering over my right now, in the future reality she knows.
I think about it like this: The Bible tells us that we are connected with believers all over the world, through the Holy Spirit. So if God is in all time and space, then from God's perspective our future resurrected selves are in God, and if God is with us, then they are with us through God. As I told my youth group, this is just me making crap up. Seeing as the great theologians of the church haven't figured this out, I doubt I have it down.
The bottom line is that we can take comfort in the fact that we will be resurrected body and soul someday and united with God, and our loved ones (living and dead) are still connected to us and present in our lives. All Saints Day is about remembering, honoring, and being inspired by those who have been witnesses in our lives
****This is where the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows references start****
So of course I'm going to relate this to HP. When Harry is walking to his death, the Resurrection Stone brings back his loved ones who have died in the fight against Voldemort. These are the Saints of the Harry Potter world. This is what All Saints Day is about, the early church was still full of real danger and trial, and the witness of the Saints gave people the courage to face even death for the their faith. Oh J.K. Rowling, you amaze me. If anyone wants to get me the best birthday present ever, arrange for me to have tea with J.K. Rowling. :-)
1) In Judeo-Christian belief, the soul and body are not separable. When we die, our souls chill with our bodies (its like the best nap you could imagine) until Jesus comes back and Resurrects us all together.
2) Even though this is what we technically believe, we still have beliefs about dead Saints being present with us (the idea of immortal souls being separate from the body comes from Greek philosophy).
My Church History teacher told us that Halloween traditions come from pagan festivals recognizing the start of the dark half of the year, when they believed that the world of the dead overlapped with the living. Night was a scary time during the ancient world, when they didn't have much artificial light. In the midst of this, the Church starts celebrating All Hallows Day or All Saints Day, as if to say "Bring it! We don't need to protect ourselves from evil spirits! We have the witness and the protection of the Christians who have passed on."
So this is a little problematic. We believe that the souls can't be separate from the bodies, but that the souls are present with us when we celebrate communion, etc. (Remember my World Communion Sunday note?) I mused over this with my youth group, and here is my theory. When the Resurrection happens, we are raised and enter God's presence. So even though my Grama is dead, in the future resurrection reality, she theoretically knows everything I've done to this point, and will do from here on. Even if she isn't hovering over my right now, in the future reality she knows.
I think about it like this: The Bible tells us that we are connected with believers all over the world, through the Holy Spirit. So if God is in all time and space, then from God's perspective our future resurrected selves are in God, and if God is with us, then they are with us through God. As I told my youth group, this is just me making crap up. Seeing as the great theologians of the church haven't figured this out, I doubt I have it down.
The bottom line is that we can take comfort in the fact that we will be resurrected body and soul someday and united with God, and our loved ones (living and dead) are still connected to us and present in our lives. All Saints Day is about remembering, honoring, and being inspired by those who have been witnesses in our lives
****This is where the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows references start****
So of course I'm going to relate this to HP. When Harry is walking to his death, the Resurrection Stone brings back his loved ones who have died in the fight against Voldemort. These are the Saints of the Harry Potter world. This is what All Saints Day is about, the early church was still full of real danger and trial, and the witness of the Saints gave people the courage to face even death for the their faith. Oh J.K. Rowling, you amaze me. If anyone wants to get me the best birthday present ever, arrange for me to have tea with J.K. Rowling. :-)
Labels: All Saints Day, Harry Potter
posted by Unknown at 12:02 AM
1 Comments:
Hey Megan! It's Dan. Anyway i like the blog and I am definately interested is the Revalation Bible study. Lately I watched the lost book of Nostradamus and it tells how Nostradamus predicts the end of the world through Pictures. A bunch of scholars to see what he was saying and they figured from clues that the end of the world will be when the sun lines up with the exact center of the galaxy. So they narrowed the years down to 2012. Pretty close huh. But I don't believe it I think it was a message from god saying Enjoy your life while you can because you never know when it will leave you.
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