What we do know is that death changes, but does not destroy, our relationship to the dead. We stand on a great continuum of worship with the saints who have gone before us. We pray, and so do they. We praise God, and so do they. Only the prayers and praises on our end of the continuum are appeals to God from the midst of historical, communal, and personal brokenness and incompletion, and as such our prayers are all set to the music of “Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20), which is the penultimate acclamation of the New Testament.
