The scriptures appointed for the celebration of All Saints relate to physical death and the hope of resurrection. The image of the hand of God in our first lesson from the Apocrypha is comforting as we think of those we know and love who have gone before us, and as we consider what lies ahead for each of us. Scripture also speaks of our being in the hand of God here and now. Especially we find the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures testifying over and over to the experience of knowing they were in the hand of God, for example: “ . . . the hand of the Lord my God was upon me,” (Ez.7:28); “But the hand of the Lord was on Elijah,” (I Kgs.18:46); “ . . . the hand of the Lord was on him there,” (Ezek.1:3); and from Isaiah, the promise of the continuing presence of God, “For thus says the Lord: I will extend prosperity to her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse and be carried on her arm, and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice; your bodies shall flourish like the grass; and it shall be known that the hand of the Lord is with his servants.” (66:12-14) Those nurturing images from Isaiah bring to mind the presence of God incarnated in the touch of a cool hand on a fevered brow, in a hand reaching down to help us up when we stumble, in hands offering to lighten the load when we are discouraged or sorrowful, in helping us make it through the day when we can’t make it on our own. The hand of God may reach out to touch us in many ways, encouraging, upholding, surprising, strengthening, chastening, transforming, healing, all in steadfast love and mercy. We can rejoice in the words of one of the birthday prayers in the Book of Common Prayer (p.830) which acknowledges that our times are in God’s hands.

In gratefulness for all the ways God works in our lives, we can join with the psalmist: “Into your hands I commend my spirit, for you have redeemed me, O Lord, O God of truth,” (Ps.31:5) and with Nan Merrill in her rendering of Ps.119:17 in her Psalms for Praying: “I give myself into your hands that I may live fully into your Word.”