This time of year in Canada it is still very cold. We take shelter and comfort in our homes. We sense a certain security when we can escape the cold elements that surround us. However, it is inevitable that at some time almost all of us need to venture outside and find ourselves surrounded by cold winds that chill us to the bone. It is then that we pay special attention to what we are wearing. Similarly, in life, we make the same experience in the shelter of God’s house.

I believe most of us who look back in life may feel we presently live in a season of spiritual coldness. It is then that we can take inventory of our spiritual articles of clothing. It is not difficult for us to appreciate their value and know how warm and secure our faith makes us feel. We should then also turn our focus to those around us, how warm and secure is my neighbour? Today I would like to specifically focus on our departed neighbour.

When I read the following verse from Rev. 3:17 “Because you say, “I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.” it sends a chill down my back. What if I lived my whole life in this condition and then after leaving this earth found myself spiritually naked. One day to stand before God with the shame of all my sins? It is then that I really feel a sense of urgency to intercede that my neighbour may be clothed in abundance, even as I have been clothed with the divine sacraments of the Holy Baptism, Holy Sealing, Holy Communion and covered by grace in the forgiveness of our sins.  As Apostle Paul wrote in Col. 3:12, I believe we can “put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering”  to help others come to the altar of our Lord Jesus Christ and experience the same warm and secure feelings we do as a child of God.

Let us actively pray for those who left this earth without faith or forgiveness. Who now, finding themselves exposed to dark, cold, and even miserable conditions. We intercede on their behalf that they may enter into the warmth and light thru the next service for the departed.