Daily Reading for March 27 • Thursday in Easter Week

The Bible tells us one thing—only one—about the dead who have passed out of our sight. They are with God. How simple that is! How sufficient it becomes! How cheap and tawdry as we dwell on it, it makes the guesses and conceits with which people try to make real to themselves what the dead are doing! They are with God. Their occupations are ineffable. No tongue can tell their new, untasted joy. The scenery in the midst of which they live speaks to the spirit with voices which no words born of the senses can describe. But the companionship and care—those are the precious, those are the intelligible things. The dead are with God. O you who miss even today the sound of the familiar voices, the sight of the dear, familiar faces, believe and be more than satisfied with that.

From a sermon on the resurrection by Phillips Brooks, quoted in A Time to Turn: Anglican Readings for Lent and Easter Week by Christopher L. Webber. Copyright © 2004. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com