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All Saints Day is November 1. It is a day in the Christian Church that commemorates all the saints both known and unknown who have received the gift of their eternal salvation in Christ and live anew with God in heaven. It is a festival day celebrating not only the victory of Jesus over the grave, but also the truth we share with him, “that because he lives, we too shall live also.” The church lights candles and bells toll while the names of those who have died in Christ are read aloud.
After my Grandma died, Grandpa and I spent a good deal of time talking about his death, their reunion in heaven, and what we imagined it would be like. I asked him what songs he wanted us to sing at his funeral and he surprised me by belting out the old revival hymn, “When the Roll is Called up Yonder.”
When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more,
When the morning breaks, eternal bright and fair;
When the saved of earth shall gather over on the other shore,
When the Roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.
When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder is hymn written in 1893 by James M. Black. The song was inspired by the absence of a child named “Bessie" in Black's Sunday school class when the attendance was taken. Black had befriended a young girl who was the daughter of the town drunkard. “Bessie” lived in poverty and was often ill herself. When the Sunday School roll call was read, she was not there to respond. The situation brought the thought to Black about the reading of the roll call in heaven and the thought of someone he knew and loved not being there haunted him. He would later put pen to paper and write the words and the music to support his belief in the words of 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17:
“For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord.”
My heart aches to see my grandparents again and so on this All Saints Day I will lift up their names, Clara M. Larson and Lewis L. Larson, as forgiven and free children of God. Who are you missing? Who will you remember? What names will you offer in praise and thanksgiving for their life on earth? On this All Saints Day, let us not linger in our grief but rejoice in the triumph of the Lord who destroyed death by death so that we too might live again and with all the Saints be present and accounted for.
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