Today's Daily Lesson comes from Revelation chapter 6 verses
9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given; 10they cried out with a loud voice, ‘Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?’ 11They were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number would be complete both of their fellow-servants and of their brothers and sisters, who were soon to be killed as they themselves had been killed.
We grow closer and closer to All Saints and the Lessons speak more vividly of our hope for them all.
They rest now in robes of white. Their clothes and bodies tattered and scattered upon the earth, they are dressed and made whole in heaven.
Now, they wait.
Two years ago this week the Washington National Cathedral hosted a Service of Thanksgiving and Remembrance for Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was beaten and murdered in Wyoming in 1998. The brutality of his death sparked a public outcry, and in October 2009, the United States Congress passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (commonly the "Matthew Shepard Act" or "Shepard/Byrd Act" for short), which was then signed into law that same month.
In the 2019 service, the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Episcopal Bishop of Washington, and the Right Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay man elected a bishop in The Episcopal Church, presided. The ashes of Matthew, a life-long Episcopalian, were then interred in the Cathedral for the sake of remembrance.
He waits.
They all wait.
In white robes, they wait.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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