You know what's fascinating about airport reunions? We've all seen those videos, People waiting to receive their loved ones after a gap of years. What is fascinating is Not the actual reunion, but what happens in the minutes before. Watch the people waiting at arrivals sometime. They're nervous, excited, checking their phones, craning their necks. They know the person is coming. The flight has landed. They've got confirmation. But that last bit, that walking through the doors part, that's the bit that feels endless.
Today, on this remembrance day, we're standing in that arrivals hall. And the readings we've heard, from the book of Wisdom and from John's Gospel, They're giving us something to stand on while we wait.
The Book of Wisdom tells us, “The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them.” But the writer wasn’t speaking from comfort; he was speaking from heartbreak. The Book of Wisdom was written for Jews living under Greek oppression, people mocked for their faith, losing loved ones, watching their traditions fade. Their world felt dark, uncertain. And into that, the author dared to write: They are in the hand of God. Not in a grave, not in an idea, but in the very hand of God. He holds them.
When I read that line, I think of the last time I held someone’s hand at the moment of death. Maybe you have done the same, an aged parent, a friend in hospice, a child gone too soon. There’s a quiet holiness in that moment. The pulse slows, the breathing fades, and you realize that your hand will soon be empty. But the book of Wisdom tells us something stunning: the hand that takes over from ours is God’s own.
There’s a touching Jewish legend about a baby about to be born asks God, “I’m afraid. The world seems so big and dark. Who will take care of me?” And God says, “Don’t worry. I’ll send an angel who will hold you, feed you, and love you.” The baby asks, “But when I return to you, will the angel come for me again?” And God answers, “Yes, but you may not recognize her. But my hand will be the same.”
Hands are remarkable things. They're not storage units. Hands don't hold things the way a shelf holds books or a vault holds gold. Hands do things. Hands create, hands comfort, hands gesture while telling stories, hands reach out. When Scripture says God holds the faithful departed in his hand, it's not saying they're in some cosmic waiting room, suspended in amber. It's saying they're in the most active, dynamic, creative place in the universe.
Every single one of us sitting here is carrying someone. Not literally, though sometimes grief does feel that heavy. We're carrying memories, conversations we wish we had had, conversations we're glad we had, regrets, gratitude, inside jokes that nobody else would understand. And the weight of wondering: are they okay? Did they make it? Did God see them the way I saw them?
God's not standing at the finish line with a clipboard to tick the boxes. He's standing there with arms wide open, like he's been expecting everyone, personally.
There’s also something humbling about this day. It reminds us not only to remember the dead, but to live in such a way that someone will remember us with gratitude, not regret, when we are gone. The souls in God’s hand aren’t there because they were perfect; they’re there because they tried to love in imperfect circumstances. Holiness isn’t about getting everything right, it’s about not giving up on love even when everything goes wrong.
So yes, we're in the arrivals hall. Yes, we're waiting. It's standing firm on the promise that everyone the Father gives to Jesus will be raised up on the last day. Not might be. But, Will be.
And until that day? We pray, we remember, we laugh at their jokes, we cry when we need to, and we trust that the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, which means they're exactly where the action is. And if the souls of the just are in the hand of God, then so are we. And one day, when our turn comes, we will find that same hand still open, steady, familiar, and waiting to hold us again.
Eternal rest grant unto them O lord and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in Peace.