Preached on Sunday, November 1, 2026, the Eve of All Souls’ Day, at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Little Rock.

The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace. (Wisdom 3:1–3)

Old King Solomon, in all his Wisdom, has a rather startling thing to say about death, doesn’t he? In the eyes of the foolish, he says, those whom we love “seemed to have died,” and “their departure was thought to be a disaster,” and “their going from us to be their destruction.” But can we really blame anyone for thinking such things? After all, what else could death possibly look like to those of us who are left behind?

We know perfectly well that those whom we remember tonight have died. We have watched them grow old, or watched them suffer through terrible illnesses, or perhaps watched as their lives came to an end far too soon. We have stood beside their graves, returned to their empty homes, and faced the prospect of living without them, in season and out. Their departure really is a disaster, and their going from us really is a kind of destruction, because something good and precious—a life shared together—has come to an end. There is no sense in pretending otherwise. Death is a terrible thing, and we Christians have never been asked to pretend that it isn’t.

Now, when Solomon tells us that such a judgment is foolish, it’s not because the loss we have suffered isn’t real. Rather, it’s foolish because it mistakes what we can see for all that there is. In the Biblical idiom, a fool isn’t someone who lacks intelligence. A fool is someone who looks at the world without taking God into account. The fool sees death and concludes that death is the end. The fool sees destruction and concludes that nothing remains. The fool sees our beloved dead and concludes that they are simply gone.

But that is not what we Christians believe tonight. We believe that there is something more to be said about those whom we love but see no longer. Indeed, Solomon has something more to say about them, too. After all his talk of death and disaster and destruction, he makes this extraordinary declaration: “they are at peace.”

And what does that mean? Peace is something far greater than the absence of suffering or the quiet of the grave. Peace is the fullness of life in the presence of God. It is the restoration of all that has been broken, the healing of all that has been wounded, and the assurance that nothing can separate us from God. Our beloved dead are at peace because, as Solomon says, their souls are in the hands of God. They are held by the One Who made them, Who loves them, and at the sound of His trumpet, Who will raise them to life again.

And that is what we remember tonight as we commemorate All Souls’ Day. We do not deny their deaths, or the terrible losses we have suffered. We do not pretend that our grief has come to an end—mine sure hasn’t, and my guess is that yours hasn’t, either. But neither do we mistake their deaths for the end of their lives in God. We know something more than what our eyes can see.

They have died. Their departure has cost us dearly. But they are at peace. And in the hands of Almighty God, so shall they remain forever.