Dr. Carlyle Marney once remarked that a person can be understood as being similar to a house. We have our living rooms, where we entertain, and our basements, where we hide the trash. The way to observe All Saints’ Day, he suggested, is to walk out into your front yard and salute the people on your balcony. The balcony people in our lives are those who have gone before us, who have been our encouragers, who have left a legacy. (1) That’s what we do on this Saints’ Day. We salute all the saints who have gone before us, whose faithfulness provided us with the faith we have today.

In John Bunyan’s classic work, Pilgrim’s Progress, we are introduced to two characters, Christian and Hopeful, who are drawing near to the river of death. As they reach the river they are met by two shining figures…