In all great works of fantasy or adventure, there is a juxtaposition between darkness and light. Whether you are thinking of an historic work of fiction or a more recent superhero movie, the theme is hard to miss. This same theme is also front and centre in the Bible itself. There is a link between light and darkness, the glory and the shadow. We are called to look into the light, but the light causes shadows. The darkness must be recognised and wrestled with because it belongs to us, like our shadow on a bright and sunny day. It is hard to miss.

Christian scholars have struggled with the relationship between light and darkness since the beginning. We feel this struggle particularly in two places during our journey through the Christian year - on Good Friday and this weekend, as St Peter’s Church commemorates two special days from this last week: ‘All Saints’ and ‘All Souls’.

On Sunday morning at 10.00am for ‘All Saints’, we will celebrate with joy ‘all the saints from whom their labours rest’. We will celebrate all the people, young and old, who have been lights on the way, heralds of the kingdom and witnesses to the Lord - prophets, kings, priests, evangelists, teachers, nurses, lovers of people and servants of God. We will give thanks for those who surround our steps, our prayers and worship before God in his nearer place. We will celebrate all those who have brought light and hope to our lives and to the world throughout the centuries.

Then, on Sunday afternoon at 4.00pm for ‘All Souls’, we will acknowledge the shadow that comes with the light of the morning’s celebrations. The shadow in the lives of the saints, the shadow that streams from you and me, the shadow of grief and loss. Every saint had family and friends who mourned their death. They may have pumped faith into the bloodstream of Christian communities, but they were people, like you and me - loved, missed, grieved.

Although we are full of thankfulness for the lives of those we loved, we still walk in the shadow of their deaths. However, at ‘’All Souls’ we have the opportunity to acknowledge the shadow, pray through it and wait in the stillness for God to speak and to offer arms of consolation that we might rest in.

We offer all of this up to the God who knows about the darkness, the God who sank into the depths on Good Friday when a whole society drove him over the edge and into the grave. However, we also offer all of this up to the God whose grave-clothes were found folded three days later and whose tomb stood empty - a confident assertion of the victory of the light, no matter how dark the shadows may sometimes become.

The promise of this Sunday is the same promise as yesterday and the same promise as tomorrow. The tomb is empty. The darkest place we think we have to go is not empty at all, because God is there, in our shadows as in our light, and there is an ‘Alleluia’ building in the deep,

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,

Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,

And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

With every blessing,

Christian