For All The Saints
Matthew 5: 1-12
All Saints Day
Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen. The sermon text for All Saints Day is the Gospel reading Matthew 5. Last week during our celebration of Reformation Day we asked this question. What does it mean to be Lutheran? Today is All Saints Day and so the next logical question we should ask is what is a saint? What do you think of when you hear the term saint? Most people think a saint is a Christian who has done exceptional things in their life. The apostles would be a good example. We often refer to the apostles as St. Peter or St. Paul. There is also the common usage of the term. We often call a person a saint who has amazing patience or deals with difficult things well. We say, “that woman is a saint for putting up with her boss so well.” I suppose there is something to be said about those definitions, but they are not exactly what is meant when we use the word saint in the church. The Biblical definition of a saint is different.
The term saint comes from a Latin rendering of a Greek word that means “holy ones.” A saint is a “holy one.” And who are the holy ones? We are told in our reading from Revelation. “These are the ones who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” To be holy means more than having a great deal of patience or doing amazing things. It requires being without sin, and neither Paul nor Peter nor any of us is that on our own. So being without sin requires our sins to be taken away. That happened when our sins were washed away in the blood of Jesus Christ. A saint, a holy one, therefore is anyone who believes that Jesus has saved him or her from sin and death.
A saint is a believer in Jesus. As saints we understand that we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. As saints we confess that we are poor sinners who are incapable of freeing ourselves from our sinful condition and so we trust in the Lord Jesus who has washed away our sins through His death and resurrection.
All three readings for today describe for us the life of a saint. We live in God’s Kingdom now where Christ brings us life and salvation and at the same time we wait for the coming of the Lord to bring us into the full presence of God for all eternity. We see this clearly in our epistle reading from 1 John. John tells us that God’s love has been given to us and that we are God’s children right now. That is to say that we have received God’s grace and that we are fully dependent upon the Lord. But he also goes on to say that what we will be has not yet appeared. He tells us that when Jesus visibly appears we will be like Him. We will receive glorified bodies like His and we will see Him face to face.
We also see the life of the saints being described by Jesus in our Gospel reading in the same way. The words of our Lord describe our present life as His followers. Even though we are saved and redeemed children of God we nevertheless mourn, not in the sense of mourning someone’s death, but we are mourning our sinful condition. We are mourning the corrupt world in which we live. We are the meek, not in some sort of self – humbling condition, but in the sense that we are unable to save ourselves and that we rely fully on the Lord. We are the peacemakers, not in the mold of a peace delegation, but in the biblical sense of those who bring the good news of peace to a broken and dying world. That could be a pastor proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the congregation or a mother who tenderly cares for her child, telling in simple words of the Savior who brings peace to us all.
We live in God’s grace now, but we also wait for the consummation of all things on the last day. When Jesus talks about those who mourn being comforted, the lowly inheriting the earth, those hungering and thirsting for righteousness being satisfied, the merciful being shown mercy, the pure in heart seeking God, and the peacemakers being called sons of God, we understand that we will know those things fully when the Lord Jesus comes again in His glory. This will happen on the last day when we will know comfort beyond all bounds and will be fully satisfied by God’s perfect righteousness, a day when we will see God in great glory. That glorious day is indeed ours, just not yet.
Jesus tells us that His saints will be persecuted and reviled in this life. We know persecution happened to the apostles and to many Christians throughout the centuries. We also must expect trouble in this world. The fallen world hates God and opposes His Word. And yet we can rejoice because the Lord Jesus gives us the assurance that Heaven awaits His people.
We hear the same thing in our reading from Revelation. John sees a vision of heaven. He sees the people of God standing before His throne wearing the white robes of Christ’s righteousness. Notice what is said about the saints. “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. Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Now that we know what a saint is and what the life of a saint looks like we can move on to talk about All Saints Day itself. The earliest observation of All Saints Day was around 360 AD. It was known as the Festival of All Martyrs. It was a day when the church remembered those who suffered and died for confessing Christ. We continue to remember the martyrs of the church to this day. Many generations of Christians throughout the years have remembered and given thanks to those faithful brothers and sisters in Christ who proclaimed the Gospel and in doing so gave up their lives to crosses, wild animals in the arena, and flames.
We also on this day remember those friends and family members whom we knew and who have died in the faith and are now with the Lord. It could be our parents, spouse, or child. They fought the good fight, in their struggles they trusted the Lord, and now they rest from their labors. On this day we especially remember those who have died this past year from our congregation in the Commemoration of the faithful departed.
We also remember those who are still with us in this life. We rejoice in our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who are with us right now. The spouse or child who sits next to us, or the loved one we call each week. We rejoice that they too have been redeemed by the shed blood of our Lord and Savoir, Jesus Christ.
When we think about the martyrs, those who have recently departed, and for those who are with us right now, we might shed a tear. But if we do it would be a tear of joy. It is joy that comes from the salvation won for us through Christ Jesus. And so the saints in heaven, who now rest from their labors, and the saints on earth await the coming of the Lord Jesus and the unspeakable joy He has prepared for those who trust in Him. Amen.