All Saints' (Observed)

All Saints’ Day (Observed)

November 6, 2022

Text: 1 John 3:1-3

            Pete was dying.  For real, this time.  Much like our own Glen Warmbier, we’d prayed the Commendation of the Dying with him and planned his funeral any number of times, only for him to pop back up into vigorous life and health, the same old Pete we knew and loved.  But this time was different.  This time it was certain.  As certain as we can be of death, which is about as certain as we can be of anything.  The family called in hospice.  They took him off his medications, except for pain control.  His den was converted to serve as his final abode this side of the grave.  And as his pastor, I sat beside his hospital bed pretty much every day, and often half the night, of that final week. 

            It was early on in the process, as I was reading Scripture and praying with Pete and his dear wife, and had just given them Communion, that Pete stopped me, looked me straight in the eye, and asked, “Pastor, what will it be like?”  As we all so often wonder, especially in those times when we can no longer hide death behind a curtain, or pretend it doesn’t exist.  What is it like to pass from this side of the veil to the other?  What is it like in heaven?  It’s all so mysterious.  And that is why it makes even the strongest Christians among us nervous.  “Well,” I said to Pete, “I don’t really know.  The Scriptures don’t tell us much about heaven, as in the intermediate state where the soul reposes as we await the Last Day.  And, of course, all the silly things we say about heaven being ‘That Great Golf Course in the Sky,’ for example (Pete lived on a golf course), or cultural images of ethereal souls floating around in the clouds with their harps and halos, don’t help.  We don’t become angels when we die (angels were created in the beginning, as angels).  We’re not stars shining down on our loved ones.  We don’t spend our time in the afterlife peeping on our loved ones, watching their every move.”  Which is really pretty creepy when you think about it.  I probably didn’t say this to Pete in the moment, but do you really want Grandma watching when you’re in the shower, or visiting the euphemism, as Dr. Suess would say, never mind when you’re sinning?  Let’s stop saying such ridiculous and unbiblical things about death.  They really aren’t comforting.  They’re just delusional.  “Here is what we know from the Scriptures,” I said to Pete.  “We know that we will see Jesus, and so we will be full of joy.  God will wipe away our tears and relieve us of all pain.  We’ll undoubtedly see our loved ones who have died in Christ there before His throne, and together, we’ll worship the Lamb who was slain, but who lives, and in whose blood our sin-stained robes have been washed white.”  “That’s pretty good,” he agreed. 

            “But then,” I said, “the real kicker of it all, the complete fulfillment of all our Christian hope, and what the Scriptures do tell us about, is not our soul in heaven when we die, but the resurrection of the body on the Last Day, when Jesus comes again in glory.  Your body, Pete, will rise from the grave.  Your soul will be reunited with your body.  And you’ll live forever with Jesus in your body, like Jesus’ resurrection Body, healthy, whole, complete, in a new heavens and a new earth.”  Well, Pete’s eyes grew big as saucers as he leaned forward and said to me, “Really?...  Huh!”  And now it was my turn to be surprised.  “I never knew that!” Pete said.  Now, how many years, how many decades, had Pete been a Lutheran?  And, not to take it personally, but how many years had I been his pastor, and how often had I preached this very thing to him?  But then, I suppose it isn’t all that surprising.  We hear what we want.  We think what we want.  I know how it works.  I’ve sat in there in the pews, too.  And I know how it is in this fallen flesh.  We miss an awful lot.  We dismiss an awful lot.  Things that challenge our preconceived notions.  Things we don’t understand.  Things we simply don’t like. 

            But then, the Gospel, as it is preached, turns us (literally, repents us), so that it opens our ears to hear the life-giving good tidings of Jesus, crucified and risen, who will raise us, as something ever surprising and new.  I think that was going on for Pete, too.  He had heard this before.  He did know it.  But now, he knew it, in the very face of death. 

            Nevertheless, beloved, to save me no small amount of frustration later on, listen up very carefully and closely to what I’m about to say:  Heaven is great.  Your soul will go there when you die.  But even better: On the Last Day, Jesus will raise you from the dead.  Bodily!  Your body will come out of your grave, healed and whole.  Even as He, who died for your sins, is now risen from the dead, and lives eternally.  Your soul, which was separated from your body in death (that is the definition of physical death), will be reunited with your body (that is the definition of physical life!).  And you will live forever with Jesus in your body!  “Really.  Huh.”

            What will it be like?  St. John answers, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2; ESV).  We are God’s children now, because we are baptized into Christ, the Father’s eternal Son.  So, as God’s children, we have a hope and expectation of the good things to come in His Kingdom.  Yes, we hope… on the basis of our current status as God’s baptized and redeemed children… we hope, in spite of the things our eyes currently see: Evil, death, sadness.  War.  Sickness.  Pain.  Brokenness.  All the marks of a fallen world, that does not know us, because it does not know Him.  All the marks of a fallen and sinful nature, and a broken and fallen body, descended as it is from Adam.  We hope nevertheless, because we know that things are not as they appear.  We also know that what things will be, what we will be, and what we are now in truth, has not yet appeared.  But soon, Jesus will appear.  And that is when we will be given eyes that see unhindered.  Jesus will come again in glory with the holy angels.  He will raise all the dead, and then He will judge.  He will give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ, as we say in the Catechism.  And He will consign sin, death, and the devil, along with all unbelievers, to the Lake of Fire.  And then we, who believe in Christ, will be forever with the Lord.  New heavens.  New earth.  Creation restored.  Bodies made whole.  All as it was always meant to be.  Free from sorrow.  Free from sin.  We don’t yet know what all of this will look like.  We don’t yet know what we will be.  But we know that we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is.  That is, beholding the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ, who is the very Image of the invisible God, the image of God we lost in the fall, will be restored in us.

            Pete slipped into a coma a few days after our conversation about the resurrection.  But then, he woke up!  Now, this doesn’t happen for everybody, or even for most people, but for his last full day on this earth, surrounded by his family, I think Pete was getting a head-start on the resurrection.  For lunch, he ordered up a Five Guys Burger and Fries for everyone, his treat.  And the rest of the day he spent directing his sons on how to slow-roast Pete’s Famous Prime Rib dinner for the family feast that night.  It was a beautiful day of love and laughter, joy and celebration, the very best food, and the very best drink.  As it will be in heaven, and on the Day of Resurrection.  As it is now, with angels, and archangels, and all the company of heaven around the body and blood of the risen Lord Jesus.  We don’t see it from this side of the veil.  But there they are, on the other side, joining us for the Wedding Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom that has no end.

            Pete’s condition deteriorated again that night, as we knew it would.  We sat beside him and prayed and sang.  About mid-morning the next day, a far-off look came over his eyes.  And he began to chant.  “Jesus… Jesus… Jesus…”  I don’t know how long.  15 minutes.  A half hour.  The hymn is true… “When the fight is fierce, the warfare long, Steals on the ear the distant triumph song” (LSB 677:5).  It was a prayer.  But I suspect he was singing with them.  But then his voice became weaker.  Finally, only his jaw was moving to the rhythm.  And then…  When Pete breathed his last, it was to exhale the Name of his Savior.  Undoubtedly, he is still chanting, “Jesus… Jesus… Jesus…”  But now, for us, it only just steals on our ears, from a distance, and it is entirely hidden from our eyes. 

            Not for long, though.  Soon, very soon, the Lord Jesus will appear.  We’ll wake up with Pete.  And with Glen, and Leonard, Odessa, and Kathleen.  With Moses, and King David, with Ruth, and John the Baptist.  With Peter, Paul, and Martin Luther.  With Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, and with all the saints, all our loved ones who have died in Christ, and live in Him, whose robes have been washed white in the blood of the Lamb, who are coming out of the great tribulation.  Jesus will do it.  He will call us forth from the grave.  He’ll give us His hand, the one with the nail print, and lift us out.  And then we will live with Him.  And we will be like Him.  For we will see Him as He is.  With resurrection eyes.  In our risen, living body.  Really.  That is not just what it will be like.  That is how it will be on that blessed Day.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.