Hilary and I have just got back from a lovely time in Cyprus, visiting our grandson (and his parents!). We stayed for a while in a villa near Pafos, and had a few trips out, including along the coast to the north. Right at the top of the Greek part of the island near the border with the Turkish Republic of Cyprus, we came across a large modern church with a war memorial in the grounds: St Rafael's Church in the small village of Pachiammos. Inside the church were lots of frescoes painted on the walls, including more than once the picture of a monk called Rafael being tied to a tree upside down, having his head sawn off by Turkish soldiers. There were also a lot of crutches propped up next to a splendid silver icon. So what was this about? we thought.

One of the key features of Greek Orthodox churches is the great number of paintings of the saints and bible stories they contain. There is always a large number of saints on the iconostasis, the screen in front of the altar; and many churches have lots of pictures around or on the walls as well. The effect when you're in church is of being surrounded by saints and bible characters, and looking towards a wall of holy men (mainly) and angels, who are there to be a bridge between earth and heaven, as icons of God – images of what God is like, and people through whom we experience something of God touching them and also touching our lives.

To be in an Orthodox Church is like being on the middle of the field at a football or rugby match: surrounded by a great group of like-minded supporters who are cheering on the team, actively supporting and being part of them. We're not the crowd – that's the job of the saints. A congregation isn't a set of spectators who watch the worship and then go away till next week's match. We're part of the match itself, which goes on day and night; we participate in worship and prayer and in communion, we love and serve Jesus Christ in our own lives and in helping others to know God's love too. The saints are there as a great crowd to cheer us on. On Match of the Day they refer to great footballing heroes of the past like Bobby Charlton or Dennis Law (or Wayne Rooney?!). So for us, the saints encourage us by their example: they show us that victory is possible, that suffering is part of the game, that losing as well as winning will be part of our experience, and that all of us together are following in the footsteps of Jesus our Lord.

Our reading from St Luke (9.18-27) is an outline of what we may experience as we follow Jesus. Like any good players, we have to go through discipline and hardship to be part of the winning team. Lots of people would like to be like Wayne Rooney, and get for themselves large amounts of money while not playing very well for their team; but that's not what Christian life is about.

This Sunday morning we're remembering the great Christian feast of All Saints (1st November), when we celebrate the lives of all those who have been noted by the church as examples of faith – our sporting heroes, if you like. And then this afternoon we recall the memory of All Souls (2nd November), the faithful departed of every age who we mourn and remember, and pray that they, and eventually we too ourselves, may come to be part of the resurrection of Christ.

But of course, neither of these Christian celebrations are much noticed in the wider world, for whom today is All Hallow's Eve, Halloween: the largest non-religious festival of the year around the world, thanks to the Americans, whose mixture of magic, darkness, mischief, horror, fire, and demanding sweets with menaces has been much more lucrative for costume makers and pumpkin growers than the Christian festival of All Saints. Though Halloween was to some extent Christian, as e.g. 'trick or treat' originates in the custom of the poor going round receiving gifts of food in exchange for their praying for the souls of the dead. Halloween is a good example of how religious commitment and prayer, which is about how we live in the presence of God, gets replaced by a godless and frivolous bit of fun, which has no impact on how we live the rest of the year, and doesn't help us to love God or our neighbour better. Unlike the example of the saints.

So why was a picture of St Rafael being sawn up painted on the wall of a new church in Cyprus? There's a story behind it, of course – two stories in fact. In 1959 on the Greek island of Lesbos a man started building a chapel next to a  monastery which was destroyed by the Ottoman Turks in the 1400s, and discovered some bones which in dreams and visions the local people learned were those of Rafael, an abbot martyred by the Turks for being a follower of Jesus on Easter Tuesday 1463. Rafael is also the name of the angel of God credited with powers of healing, and praying to and with St Rafael for healing has become part of some Orthodox devotion.

Then 1988 a sick man in Pafos had a dream about St Rafael which led him to find healing, and to feel called to help build a new larger church in the small village of Pachiammos – and the money was raised to do so. Scores of villagers had died at the hands of Turkish forces in 1962, and a large memorial was made for them in the grounds of the church.

So people come to St Rafael's Church to pray for healing, and leave their crutches and bandages behind; to remember their dead, and to draw inspiration from the life of a saint who also suffered at Turkish hands centuries before, yet who prayed for his persecutors. As the parish priest there has reportedly said: “if we give our hands in faith and love to all the nations of the world, to fight for justice for all, so we will have better and happier days. Especially the Turkish Cypriots who for us are not strangers because they stay on the same Island with us, and they are our friends.”  In that church the saints are not angelic figures, but real people who suffered like us, who have known God's grace before us.

Halloween gives us no hope in the face of sorrow. It's hard to cope with sickness, suffering or violence on your own.  But with Jesus Christ, as all the saints show us, we can go together through the trials and tribulations in the game of life, cheered on by those who have gone before us, and encouraged by their example.

Jesus said: “the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected and killed, and on the third day be raised”. So let us deny ourselves and take up our cross each day, and follow after Jesus: that we too may share in the joy of his resurrection from the dead.  For with all the saints, we are in good company.