One of my favourite films of all time is the classic comedy, "Educating Rita". It tells the story of a woman who decides to transform her life by studying for a degree with the Open University, and in doing so draws opposition from those around her who think that by refusing to be bound by the limits that hold others back she is somehow letting down her working class roots. My favourite scene in the film comes after Rita has embarrassed herself by pretending to be something she isn't. She goes back to the streets where she grew up and finds herself sitting in a pub with her family. A song is playing on the jukebox and the people in the pub begin to join in. Hesitantly Rita joins her voice with the others in the pub but then she stops singing and walks out of the pub and goes back to the difficult struggle in which she has been engaged. The struggle to become more than the constraints of her background and upbringing would permit. She explains to her Open University tutor, "I thought, there must be a better song than this to sing".
This evening we have gathered together for a service of thanksgiving. In a few moments Caroline and I will read out a list of names - names of those who people in this congregation have known and loved; names of those who have been separated from us by death. No matter what we believe about the afterlife remembering and reading out those names is a good thing. These are people who have been part of our lives, people we have love or who have had a powerful influence on the way in which our lives have developed and today we remember them. We recognise that their going from us has diminished us and we seek healing in this process of remembering. We recognise that while we live and while their names are remembered there is still a sense in which they live on. All this is right and fitting.
But for me, as a Christian, it is not enough. The loss that we experience is real and grief that that loss brings us is more painful than any physical hurt and it is right to sing the song of remembering, it right sing the song of lament. But if that is the only song we sing then it is a song of hopelessness. And there must be a better song than that to sing.
One of the greatest leaders of the Christian Church during the first centuries of its existence was a man name Augustine. He was a Bishop in the city of Hippo on the coast of North Africa in what is now known as Algeria. In one of his sermons to the people of that city he stated that, "We [Christians] are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song". He was saying that for Christians the central message of their faith was that Jesus Christ, who had been put to death in the most brutal possible fashion by being nailed to a Roman cross had not been held by death but had risen from the grave to walk and talk with his followers once again, and because that had had happened the song that Christians sang was not a song of defeat and despair but one of joy and celebration.
We are an Easter people, and alleluia is our song. The resurrection of Jesus shows that there is more to life than this mortal life. That we are made, not for the grave, but for glory. That when the story of our life on earth is over, it is not the end of the book but merely the close of the first chapter our eternal story. That we are created not for this mortal life alone but to Glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.
So today we remember those who have gone before us through death, not because they are gone from for ever but because death is, through Jesus Christ, the gateway to eternal life.
And that has implications for how we live now. Because if we live our lives as though they are all there is, as though there is no God and no heaven, then we are making a terrible mistake. We’re singing the wrong song. Today God invites us to join in the song that lasts for ever. The everlasting allelula which the church on earth sings in concert with those who live on, though Jesus Christ, in the eternal presence of God.
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