5 Nov 2023
Text: 1 John
3:1-2 (Matt 5:1-12, Rev 7:2-17)
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
When we honor the saints, we are really honoring Jesus. For He is the one who turns us poor, miserable sinners into saints. And this is the entire point of the Christian faith. And here we are nearly two thousand years after our Lord’s death on the cross to save us, after His resurrection that points us to our own resurrections and to those of our loved ones who have died in the faith. And still, most people miss the entire point.
It’s one thing when we think of great saints whom we remember by name, like St. Augustine the great theologian and doctor of the church, or St. Teresa, the nun who served the poor in India, or St. Paul, the apostle who spread Christianity all over the known world and wrote half of the New Testament. But how quickly we forget that Augustine had been a member of a cult who had a son out of wedlock, that Teresa’s diary reveals a woman plagued by doubts, or that Paul was once Saul, the inquisitor of Christians who took part in the lynching of St. Stephen, the first martyr.
What makes a saint a saint (a word that means holy) is that every one of them had a saving encounter with Jesus – whether in Holy Baptism as an infant, or in a conversion later on, maybe even on one’s deathbed.
But today, on this great feast, we don’t call to mind the great saints whose names we know for the great deeds that they did, inspiring us to imitate their great works. Rather, we remember all saints, those whose names we know, and those unknown to history. We remember the saints whom Christian churches have declared to be saints, and we remember our loved ones for whom Christ died, for whom Christ’s blood atones, those who will never have a marble statue or a church named after them.
Their saintly works may have been those of godly parents: fathers working multiple jobs, mothers nursing us as babies and taking care of us when we were sick. They taught us to pray and took us to church. They had us baptized. Our saints may also have suffered for their faith, maybe not by being fed to lions, but maybe by being passed over for a new job, or denying themselves worldly pleasure for the sake of doing what is right.
The Book of Revelation gives us a glimpse into eternity, as St. John was permitted to see beyond the veil, describing the saints as “servants of God” who have been “sealed” on their foreheads. It is the ancient custom among Christians to trace the sign of the cross in oil on the forehead of the newly baptized, and for the pastor to bless the baptized by tracing the cross over them as a reminder, by reminding us of the cross when they visit us when we are sick and dying, and even crossing our foreheads when our bodies lie in the casket awaiting the resurrection.
The sign of the cross is the sign of the saint. For it is at the cross, by the Lamb’s blood, that we sinner-saints are “sealed.” And in heaven, those who have been sealed sing the great heavenly liturgy of praise to Jesus, the Lamb. And for our sake, one of the elders in heaven asks John, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” And the elder answers his own question: “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.” These saints, dear friends, have not heroically earned a spot in heaven by being a doctor of the church, a nun serving the poor, or an apostle, missionary, and church planter. The saints are saints because their sins have been washed away by the blood of the Lamb. We are saints because of the cross. We are saints because of Jesus.
And this is our hope and our joy, dear friends, knowing that we will see them again, in glory, with no more suffering, no more death, no more great tribulation of this fallen world. “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.” Their lives of sacrifice and labor and suffering are over. And now, the saints surround the throne of the Lamb, singing the liturgy of praise: “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever.” And so we join them in this same liturgy. We surround this same throne of the same Lamb, the same King, the same crucified God whose blood cleanses and saves us. The same body and blood in which we partake.
How sad when we forget this reality, as we forget that our loved ones are here with Jesus, even as we are here with Jesus, in the liturgy that brings us into contact with the body of our Savior, the blood of the Lamb, given and shed for you. Every Divine Service is a great feast of All Saints as we commune with Jesus, and with them, separated by a thin veil. Why would anyone want to be anywhere else, dear friends?
Our departed saints, whether we know their names or not, whether churches are named after them or not, lived lives of love, because the love of God was first given to them. As the same St. John who was given the revelation of those sealed in heaven wrote, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” Think, dear friends, what a great privilege it is to pray to God as our Father, to “ask Him as dear children ask their dear father.” It is easy to take this privilege for granted, just as it is easy to get so wrapped up in our lives that we forget about the saints in heaven, and the fact that we, and they, are waiting for the resurrection and our reunion with them in the flesh!
So why do the saints suffer tribulation? Why doesn’t the world join us in honoring the saints, and in honoring the Lamb whose blood turns lynch mobs into churches? “The reason why the world does not know us,” says St. John, “is that it did not know Him.” The world and its prince, the devil, do not know Him as their God, as the one who came out of love. We see a Savior, but they see a threat to their sinful way of life, to being able to lord over and abuse others, to bending others to their will. The world does not know Jesus, because it doesn’t want to know Him, and so they don’t know us either.
But we know the saints, dear friends. Because we know Jesus. We know the Lamb. We know the Good News. We know our Good Shepherd. We know His voice when He calls us. We know His Word. We know the truth, the same truth that sets us free, seals us, and makes us saints. We are a holy people in spite of ourselves. And “we know that when He appears we shall be like Him” and “everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure.”
Indeed, to be a saint is to be baptized, wearing the robe made white by the blood of the Lamb. It is to be sealed by the sign of the cross. It is to confess the name of Jesus, to praise Him in the liturgy, to receive the body and blood of Jesus, and to come right up to the thin veil at this altar that separates us from our loved ones “who from their labors rest.” To be a saint is to be a sinner who has been redeemed, whose life is offered to the God who has saved us by His blood.
Indeed, to be a saint is not to be perfect. To be a saint almost never involves being remembered in history, not even the history of the church. To be a saint is to be loved by God and washed in the blood. To be a saint is to be blessed by God in our incompleteness, but to hear and believe the promises that we “shall be” brought to completion in eternity, owning the kingdom of heaven, comforted, inheriting the earth, satisfied, receiving mercy, seeing God, being called sons of God, owning heaven itself, being rewarded greatly in heaven.
Saints are not necessarily those who do great things, but rather those who receive great gifts from the great Giver of the greatest of gifts. “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.”
And so on this great feast, let us honor the saints. For when we honor the saints, we are really honoring Jesus.
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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