All Saints' C

“All Saints’ Day is a Christian [day of] remembrance, that celebrates the honor of all church saints, whether known or unknown. It is also known as All Hallows’ Day, the Feast of All Saints, the Solemnity of All Saints, and Hallowmas. The Christian festival of All Saints’ Day comes from a conviction that there is a spiritual connection between those in Heaven and on Earth. Hallow, in Old English, means ‘holy’ or ‘sacred.’ Therefore, ‘Hallows' Eve,’ or ‘Halloween,’ simply means ‘the evening of holy persons’ and refers to the evening before All Saints’ Day...” [All Saints’ Day - The Meaning and History Behind November 1st Holiday - Topical Studies (biblestudytools.com)]

ALL church saints. That includes you and me as well. As Luther himself describes all of us, we are: simul justus et peccator - at the same time both saint and sinner. There’s no denying that we are all sinners, but we should never forget that, because of Christ, we are also saints.

Please don’t misunderstand: I don’t mean to diminish the remembrance that today brings. It is good that we look back at the last 12 months and remember those who have finished their earthly journey and now rest in God’s care. In the western Christian tradition, we would say they have transitioned from the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant. Did you notice the part that didn’t change? “Church”. We still share that with them: we are all part of God’s Church.

This is precisely the image that Saint John describes in our first reading this morning. He starts by describing this very large crowd of 144,000. Did John take the time to count that many people? Of course not. It’s not meant to be a rigidly exact number. It is, however, a meaningful number. “it symbolizes the perfect number of God’s people, the square of twelve by the cube of ten (12 × 12 × 1000).” [Gerhard A. Krodel, Revelation, Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1989), 182–183.]

This group symbolizes the Church Militant - those who have not yet died when Judgment Day comes. The next group John describes is so big that it cannot be numbered. This is the Church Triumphant in the new millenium. Did you notice what they are doing? They have palm branches in their hands - the same kind of branch that they threw in front of Jesus to welcome him to Jerusalem as their king. These branches are a symbol of victory and happiness, and they are celebrating the consummation of salvation in worship. In other words, they recognize that they have been saved, and it is a done deal, and they are singing God’s praises for His victory.

Look at verse 10: “and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (vs 10, ESV) … “This salvation denotes total well-being. Its source is God and the Lamb, and salvation is to be ascribed to them alone. This is the meaning of ‘belongs to’. This praise acclaims the final salvation which God and the Lamb have accomplished. The multitude celebrates its total deliverance from everything that could limit life. Fear and tears, hunger and thirst, sin and death are past. We owe our salvation to God and the Lamb. Salvation is not just deliverance from diverse evils, but wholeness of life in God’s presence and participation in his life and reign.” [Krodel, 184–185.] If someone ever asked you what it means to be “saved” - here’s a great definition of that.

Wholeness of life in God’s presence and participation in his life and reign. Do we have to wait for Judgement Day for that? No, of course not. And we’re here now, doing exactly that. But how do we do during the other 6 days of our week? Does participation in God’s life and reign have anything to do with how we are going to be a Great Commission church? You better believe it does. And yes, it is also how we are going to grow in our outreach. Participating in God’s life and reign is also part of good Christian stewardship. So no, we don’t have to wait for the End of the Age to come for us to participate in God’s life and reign.

But when that day *does* come, all of us who have been saved will then enjoy wholeness of life in God’s presence. Let’s just think about that for a moment. “Wholeness” tells us that we will lack nothing. We will be wanting for nothing else. The Hebrew word for that is shalom. When that day comes, and we find ourselves before the throne and before the Lamb, we won’t want to be anywhere else. We won’t want to know when worship is done, because we won’t want to stop. We won’t want to stop worshiping God. Of course, you’ll have a much better preacher than you do today...

In John’s vision, “the chief characteristics of the ultimate future are worship, God’s presence, the absence of hunger, thirst, scorching heat, and the Lamb as their shepherd.” [Krodel, 187.] Think of this as God taking away everything that would distract you from being perfectly focused on Him. We will be free from all forms of want and sorrow, so that we will be completely free to worship God and the Lamb. Sorrow is a major feature of our day today, but today is the day that we take that sorrow, and we meet it with God’s hope. In the age to come, there will be no more sorrow, because those we have lost will be reunited with us, and we will all be together in God’s presence.

That scene is what we envision in our liturgy when we say “This is the Feast of Victory for our God” - that is the eternal feast that we will enjoy in God’s presence with all the other saints in glory. It’s good for us to look forward to that. It’s good for us to have hope in that, because that is the greatest of God’s promises - that we will all be together with Him eternally, and that we will be whole in His presence.

What is our guarantee? After all, even John acknowledges that God’s saints will have faced tribulation by the time this day comes. “...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.” … “Tribulations are the pressures of the world against those who witness to the Word of God. While God, through the word of his witnesses, makes his assault upon the world, the world does not simply collapse. It strikes back, and, using diverse means, creates tribulations for the church.” [Krodel, 186.] Is God’s Church facing tribulations right now? John’s vision shows us that the church will survive that. Salvation happens anyway.

But salvation is not something the Church does. Salvation is not something we do for ourselves. The basis of salvation is Christ’s saving death. And in John’s vision, the image of “washing and making their robes white in the blood of the Lamb refers to baptism, to the forgiveness received in baptism.”(ibid.) In our baptism, we are united with Christ, and we are then claimed as His, welcomed into the Church on earth (Church Militant) and given the promise of eternal life - the scene described by John in today’s reading. In this promise we put our hope.

Hope is a powerful thing.

“A number of years ago researchers performed an experiment to see the effect hope has on those undergoing hardship. Two sets of laboratory rats were placed in separate tubs of water. The researchers left one set in the water and found that within an hour they had all drowned. The other rats were periodically lifted out of the water and then returned. When that happened, the second set of rats swam for over 24 hours. Why? Not because they were given a rest, but because they suddenly had hope!” [Today in the Word, May, 1990, p. 34]

Hope is what today is all about. Let us take this hope that we share out into the world and let it be a light in the darkness that so often surrounds us.