Even Ghost Stories Are Love Stories

Love can reach across any obstacle, real or imagined, present or future, anything in life and even the chasm of death.

This sermon for All Souls’ Day is adapted from one preached by Charlotte Elia at Blackstone Presbyterian Church in Blackstone, Virginia on Sunday, October 30, 2022. You can listen to the audio of this sermon here or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

It’s a familiar passage and familiar passages comfort us, but oftentimes with the familiar we struggle to hear with new ears, to see with new eyes, to appreciate with open minds and vulnerable hearts. The plain meaning of the text here is simple enough— still extravagant and outrageous, but simple. There is nothing in this whole world, nothing that we know and nothing unknown; nothing in this present moment and nothing in the unseen future; nothing that we can imagine and nothing that anyone can invent; nothing even as universal and seemingly final as death itself that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. There is nothing that this world has ever known or will ever know that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. There is no power like the power of the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing can overcome the power of that love. Nothing else has any meaning in the face of that love. That love conquers all, even death itself, and nothing, absolutely nothing can stand in the way of the love of God in Christ Jesus.