Monday, November 4, 2019

All Saints' Day (Observed)


All Saints’ Day (Observed)
November 3, 2019
Text: Rev. 7:9-17
            Who are these whose names were read at the beginning of the Service, and from where have they come?  These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.  They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14; ESV).  That is to say, these dear people, whom we love, whom we miss, are those baptized into Christ, sins forgiven, covered in Jesus’ blood and righteousness, and they have died in Christ, which is to say, they live in Him.  They are the saints in heaven.  They are part of the continuous, ongoing parade of those coming out of the great tribulation.  And the great tribulation is the life of the Christian in exile in this fallen world, with this fallen flesh.  They come out when they die.  They leave this world.  They shed their fallenness, their sinful nature.  But it is not just a coming out.  It is a going in.  They go in to the very throne room of God and of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, where they behold Him face to face… The “Beatific Vision,” we call it, the blessed sight. 
            And notice, they go in, not because they’re pretty good people by whatever subjective human standard we use to judge.  They go in because they are covered with Jesus.  By Baptism.  By faith.  Clothed in white robes.  That is the baptismal garment, the alb.  Radiantly white.  Without spot or wrinkle or stain.  Holy.  Because they have been washed in the blood of the Sacrifice, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. 
            Two things about this: First, this is why, at your funeral, we won’t talk a lot about you, what a great person you were, how much good you did, how we know you’re “in a better place” because God “needed” you with Him to make Him feel good by all  your gosh-darn goodness.  That would be to preach salvation by works.  And it’s nowhere in the Bible, and certainly not in this text.  This text talks about sinners coming out of sin, covered with a righteousness, a goodness, not their own.  It is that of Christ.  It is that of His blood and death.  So when we have your funeral here… and we should have your funeral here.  Write it down and tell your family now… we will talk about Jesus, and how He died for your sins, and how He is risen from the dead and lives for you and brought you to Himself, not by your goodness, but by His, by grace; how you were baptized into Christ, how you heard and learned His Word which He graciously spoke to you, forgiving your sins, feeding you with His very body and blood.  And when we do talk about you, it will be to say that you were a rotten sinner (and we’ll all enjoy the expressions of shock and horror on the part of those who came expecting a eulogy).  But all of this will be to the praise and honor and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ who took your rottenness into Himself and put it to death in His flesh on the cross, who drowned your old sinful nature in Baptism, who is risen from the dead and has raised you now spiritually and will raise you bodily on the Last Day.  Let’s just be clear about this now: That is the preaching of a Christian funeral sermon.  That is what will happen here, and that is what you should want.  There will be plenty of time for us to say how much we loved you, what a dear person you were, and tell all the funny stories about you over casseroles in the fellowship hall. 
            The second thing is, this is what it means to be a saint.  When we celebrate All Saints’ Day, we aren’t just talking about the big ones: Peter, Paul, Mary (which is no reference to your favorite music group), Abraham, King David, Augustine, Luther, Walther, all the holy martyrs.  These are all saints, to be sure, but not because they were great heroes of the Bible or in the history of the Church.  They are saints in the same way our dear Odessa Johnson and the others whose names we read at the beginning of Service are saints.  By grace.  In Christ.  A saint is not someone who never sins.  A saint is not a person with extra holiness to lend to the rest of us poor common sinners.  No such person has ever existed.  Except for Jesus Christ.  Saint means “holy one.”  Jesus is THE Holy One, THE Saint.  The holiness of all others is derivative.  Because Jesus gives His holiness as a gift to the one who has faith in Him.  He dresses us in Himself, robes made white in His blood, Baptism.  Absolution, the forgiveness of sins.  His holy body, His holy blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins, now coursing through your veins and enlivening you with His life.  So Peter and Mary are saints, and Odessa is a saint in heaven, basking in the radiant presence of Jesus.  But much to your surprise, you also are a saint.  Because you have the same Jesus, giving you the same righteousness and holiness He gives to Peter and Mary and Odessa.  We just can’t see it yet, this truth about you.  Not with our earthly eyes.  You still look like a sinner, and you still sin, but we know you are a saint by faith, because of what Jesus said of you a few minutes ago in the Service: “I forgive you all your sins in the Name of the Father and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit.”  A saint is a forgiven sinner.
            And on All Saints’ Day, we celebrate in particular the saints who, while “We feebly struggle, they in glory shine” (LSB 677:4), the saints who have died and are with Christ.  Why commemorate the saints?  At least three reasons: First, thanksgiving.  We thank God for His mercy upon the saints, for forgiving their sins and giving them eternal life, and for giving them as gifts to us and to His Church.  We thank God for our family members and friends who have died in Christ, whom we love and whom we’ll see again in heaven and in the resurrection.  Second, it strengthens our faith when we see God’s faithfulness to them throughout their earthly pilgrimage, from birth to death to birth into heaven to await the resurrection; how He had mercy on them and guided them by His Spirit.  Third, they are examples to us in faith and in life.  We should imitate those who lived earthly lives of faith in Christ and of Christian virtue.  We should follow their pattern, and learn from their mistakes.[1]
            So a saint is one who was dead in trespasses and sins, but has been made alive together with Christ.  Note: You were dead.  Now you are alive.  Here is the progression.  You are born into death as a child of Adam, who sinned.  As we learn from the Catechism, you are born spiritually blind, dead, and an enemy of God, dead spiritually and dying physically and eternally.  But Christ has been born into your flesh of the Virgin Mary.  And He has taken Adam’s sin and your sin into Himself, and so He has taken your death.  He died on the cross, for you, in your place, as the just punishment for your sins.  And now He is risen from the dead, and you need not die.  His death was your death, and now His life is your life.  And the way that He applies His death and His life to you is by baptizing you into it, connecting you to it by faith.  He drowns you in Baptism.  You got your death over with at the font, for there you were joined to the death of Christ.  So now you don’t have to fear death.  And, in fact, you already possess eternal life, for in Baptism you were also joined to the resurrection of Christ.  For now, your life is hidden with Christ in God, as St. Paul says (Col. 3:3).  But for this reason, when you physically die, you do not die, for everyone who lives and believes in Jesus, who is the Resurrection and the Life, will never die (John 11:25-26).  When you die believing in Jesus, your soul goes to heaven, even as your body goes into the ground.  But going to heaven when you die is not yet the goal, beloved.  Don’t think that that is as good as it gets.  There is so much more in store for you as you live in Christ.  On that Day when our Lord returns in the glory of His Father with the holy angels, to judge the living and the dead, He will raise all the dead.  Bodily.  He will raise you, bodily, even as He is risen, bodily.  And He will give eternal life to you and all believers in Christ, bodily.  And you won’t be floating around somewhere up there in the clouds.  Your life will be on earth.  A resurrection earth.  It will be a bodily, restored, resurrected life on a physical, restored, resurrected world.  Heaven is just the interim.  Resurrection, New Creation, is our hope in all its fulness.  We’re coming back, we’re invading on that Day, to inherit the earth.
            So the saints we celebrate today are in heaven waiting for that.  And in the meantime, we know what they are doing.  They are worshiping God and the Lamb before His throne.  They are singing with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.  They serve God day and night.  They no longer suffer.  No more hunger.  No more thirst.  No more striking sun or scorching heat.  The Lamb in the midst of the throne is their Good Shepherd who guides them to springs of living water.  And God Himself wipes away every tear from their eyes.  It is a blessed thing to be there.  We long to join them.  And so we do every time we gather here around the body and blood of Jesus.  We sing with them.  We feast with them.  We are with them, for in Jesus, heaven comes down to earth.  And for a moment, we come out of the great tribulation, as we will forever when we join the heavenly procession.  And now clothed in robes cleansed by the very blood of Jesus, led by Him to the living waters, consoled by our dear Father who art in heaven, we are strengthened to go back into the fray until the day we are called out. 
            Then our names will be read in the All Saints’ liturgy.  Or even if they are not, nevertheless, this reading from Revelation will be about us.  We will join that great procession, those coming out, clothed in Jesus, saints, in Jesus.  And we will see Him there on His throne with His Father, and we will sing in the Spirit with the heavenly host, and all will be right and whole and good.  Because of Jesus.  All Saints’ Day is all about Jesus.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.          


[1] Cf. Apol. XXI (IX): 4-7.

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