This sermon was preached for All Saints' Day, Sunday, November 3, 2024. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 25:6-9, Psalm 24, Revelation 21:1-6a, and John 11:32-44. My grandfather died five years ago this past Wednesday, on October 30. At the time, I remember being so grateful that it was a quote unquote “good death.” Stephen Honan was surrounded by all his children and his beloved wife in the end. I had anointed him and prayed those powerful prayers of release and peace, and Psalm 23, too. I took great comfort in how close his death was to All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ and All Souls’, too, holding on to the hope that in some mysterious way, his passing was made easier by the thinning of the barriers of this world and the next. In good Irish tradition, our family gathered around his body, cousins, uncles, aunts, and there was joy and life there, too. Two of the littlest great-grandkids had just begun to walk - a sign that the great family my grandfather began was continuing