Redeemer Family,
A blessed All Saints' Week to you! We are in a special week of the year in our Liturgical Calendar. Tuesday was All Hallow’s Eve, yesterday was All Saints’ Day, and today is All Souls’ Day.
This week, we remember the saints, martyrs, and all the faithful departed who have gone before us and whose lives serve as signs, pointing and inviting us toward become more like Jesus..
This Sunday, we will celebrate All Saints' Sunday together with baptisms. This is a particularly special day in the liturgical year (as mentioned above), and you will notice some of the special ways we observe this day.
Note: Often I am asked if Redeemer is “low church” or “high church.” These are phrases that are often used as a shorthand reference to how much symbolism, ritual, and tradition is used in the worship service. “Low Church” environments seek to be accessible and understandable for newcomers. These environments invite people to learn before they participate. “High Church” environments invite people to engage worship through symbolic participation (kneeling, bowing, making the sign of the cross, vestments, incense, bells, etc.) These environments invite people to learn through participation.
So which is Redeemer? Our cheeky answer to this question is that Redeemer is Lo/Hi. We seek to embody the tension between low church accessibility and high church symbolism. (I wrote an article about this previously, you can read it here.)
I’m explaining all this because this coming Sunday is All Saints’ Sunday and we will scale up towards a slightly more High Church expression. You’ll encounter the following:
Baptism: One of the many things that happens in baptism is that we are baptized into a story, the story of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. In baptism we are joined with all the saints (past, present, and future) and are invited to let each of our lives become a unique embodiment of the story of Jesus.
Vestments: Many of us who will be serving up front will be wearing robes. The robes are symbolic.
The black cassock robe represents our sin.
The white surplice robe represents the way Christ washes us clean.
The colorful stole represents the easy and light yoke of service to Jesus.
The vestments symbolically retell the Gospel story.
Incense: in the Scriptures, incense is regularly associated with prayer. The Psalms (Ps. 141) speak of our prayers rising before God like incense and the book of Revelation vividly portrays the prayers of the saints as incense before the throne (Rev. 5 & 8). And ultimately, our lives, offered sacrificially to God, are like a fragrant incense offering (Eph. 5). For these reasons and more, it is fitting for us to have incense on All Saints’ Sunday, as a way of engaging even more of our senses in worship. If you'd prefer to be a little ways away from the actual diffusion, we recommend sitting towards the edges of the sanctuary.
Redeemer friends, I’m looking forward to welcoming the newly baptized into the Church this Sunday. Let’s prepare our hearts for worship this week through prayer as we remember the Saints who have gone before us.
In the Father’s love,
