Matthew 5 1-12 2004
All Saints Day, November 7, 2004
Matthew 5: 1-12, Revelation 21, Isaiah 26
“Now and Forever, Gathered Together”
after T. Kantonen
Introduction: Whenever we confess our faith in the words of the Apostles’ Creed, we include the affirmation: "I believe in the communion of saints." What do we mean when we say this? Who are the saints? And what is the "communion" of saints? All Saints’ Day prompts us to look for an answer to these questions.
According to the New Testament, the saints are not a select group of persons with haloes around their heads. They are simply the members of the Christian fellowship, men and women who live by faith in Jesus Christ and in whose lives the Holy Spirit is at work. When Paul wrote "to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi," or at Rome or Corinth, he meant all Christ’s people in those cities.
In celebrating All Saints’ Day, attention needs to be called to the word "all." Historically it refers to the fact that the medieval church, which accorded deep reverence to those whom it regarded as having achieved full sainthood and designated special days to many of them, set aside one day for remembering all its saints. The church of the Reformation, with its strong stand against worshiping the saints, drastically reduced the number of saints’ days but continued the tradition of observing All Saints’ Day, provided that the commemoration of the saints was in keeping with the gospel. Today when all Christendom is sincerely seeking the fulfillment of the Lord’s plea "that they may all be one so that the world may believe," the festival of all saints has a timely importance. It calls us to realize the unity of the church, for the fellowship of saints includes all of Christ’s people on earth, those who trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation, no matter what their nation, race, or denomination may be.
But more than that, All Saints’ Day also calls us to remember the believers in Christ who have completed their labors on earth and transferred their membership from the church militant to the church triumphant. It gives us a vision of heaven, lifting the veil which separates the people of God on earth from the people of God who have finished their earthly journey and reached the goal we are striving for. "We feebly struggle, they in glory shine." But death cannot sever the bond of Christian fellowship, for those who have departed in Christ are still in Christ as we are in Christ. After a roll-call of past heroes of the faith, the apostle Paul describes them as a cloud of witnesses surrounding us. They are a kind of cheering section urging us on to put forth every effort to "win with them the victor’s crown of gold." William H. How’s great hymn "For all thy saints," describes beautifully the spurring impact of the victorious saints in heaven upon the struggling saints on earth: "And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long, Steals on the ear the distant triumph-song,
And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong."
These Saints sing the distant Triumph Song to the Lamb of God. The saints in heaven have entered the Sabbath rest of the people of God, but the saints on earth have a battle on their hands. That is why we are called the church militant. We continue to wage the war against sin in our selves and that surrounds our communities. We, the church militant struggle as we proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. We suffer and experience the pain of this life. We wage war…"we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6:12). The Apostle Paul speaks of burden which must be thrown off, of the tenacious hold of sin which must be broken. That is what led Luther to say that in this life “the saints of God are never complete but always in the making.” "This life," he said, "is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it. The process is not yet finished, but it is going on. This is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified." As all the Saints that have gone before us, we struggle with our own sinfulness. Instead of claiming sinlessness, the more of a saint a man is the more he sees his own imperfections. Paul called himself "the chief of sinners" until the day of his martyrdom when he could say at last, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7).
Many years ago at a pastors’ conference in a theological seminary on the subject of sin and sanctification, during the discussion period, a Professor of the New Testament, known to be one of the saintliest men said, “From my own experience I must say that I am not making any progress in sanctification. I only see myself more and more clearly as a sinner.” One of his students got up at once and said, “This is terrible. Here is our teacher who by word and example is supposed to teach us the Christian life and he only sees himself as a sinner.” Whereupon another professor answered, “Young man, don’t you recognize a saint when you see one? The closer to God a man is the more keenly aware he is of his sin.” That is the kind of saints we are at best. This is what Luther had in mind when he said that a Christian is a saint and a sinner at the same time. He is a sinner but one who is on a footing of war against sin both in himself and in life around him.
This conception of sainthood underlies the beatitudes, the traditional gospel lesson for All Saints’ Day. Our Lord ascribes blessedness to the poor in spirit, the mournful and penitent, the meek and humble, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the sincere, the peacemakers, the reviled and persecuted. The road to God’s kingdom, the road which the saints have trod, is the road of humble receptivity, of sincere concern, or heroic struggle. The emphasis is not on our achievement but upon God’s grace in Jesus Christ. It is our weakness, our failure, our helplessness, God gives us His grace. As one of the Early Christians said, (Tertullian) “Saints are beggars who live by the wealth of God.” Or as Luther says, “The saints are the hungry, the thirsty, the naked and poor, who have wives and children and suffer shame. “They are ordinary struggling Christians who put their trust in God and rely not on their own holiness but on the “holiness” of Christ.”
Such are the saints, but they are to be found only in the communion of saints. There is no such person as a solitary Christian. In Luther’s quaint words, a Christian is never alone, for he is “baked together with Christ and all his saints into one loaf.” The Holy Spirit who creates faith in our hearts also binds the hearts of believers of all time together into a fellowship in Christ. Thus when we say, “I believe in the holy Christian church, the communion of saints,” we are not speaking of two different groups. The holy Christian church is the communion of saints. Saints are Christ’s people, and the church is the fellowship of Christ’s people.
Christ himself is the living center of the faith of the church and of its members. In the words of the Apostle, the race is to be run with “our eyes fixed on Jesus”, on whom faith depends from start to finish. It is on Him that everything depends.
The New Testament bears this out. It is full of impressive word-pictures that portray the close relation between Christ and his people. He is the foundation, we are the temple. “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11). In him “the whole structure is joined together, and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:21-22). He is the vine, we are the branches. “He who abides in me,” says Jesus, “he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Without a living relation to him we have the same chance to live and act as Christians as a sawed-off branch of a fruit tree has to bear fruit. He is the bridegroom, we are the bride. “I betrothed you to Christ,” says the apostle, “to present you as a pure bride to her one husband” (2 Corinthians 11:2).
The thought that runs through all these images is that there are no saints apart from the communion of saints. True Christianity is never a private matter. The stones of which the temple is built are fitly joined together to be God’s dwelling place. The vine and the branches form one living whole. The bride and the groom are not twain but one flesh. The members of the body are held together by Christ Himself. As He does it we work together, the whole body grows and builds itself up in His love.
God’s saints, whether on earth or in heaven, do not ask: what is there in it for me? Love "seeks not its own." In Luther’s words, "faith seeks nothing for itself in this world or the next" and "faith is nothing where love does not follow." True faith is God-centered and neighbor-centered, not self-centered.
There is hope and trust here. Christ gathers us together, all saints of all times, now and forever. Forever will be ushered in at the end of time with the triumph of God. It is pictured for us now… “a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.” Their song is “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb! ... Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!” (Revelation 7:9-12).
What a wonderful picture this is for us and for the saints in Heaven that wait for the “Day of the Lord.” They too, wait for this great day. So close is the togetherness of the communion of saints that not even the saints who have gone to Heaven enjoy the full joy of heaven before we are united with them. In the letter to the Hebrews the apostle concludes his description of the departed heroes of faith with these words: “Yet they did not enter upon the promised inheritance, because, with us in mind, God had made a better plan, that only in company with us should they reach their perfection” (Hebrews 11:39-40). It is only when God’s redemptive purpose for all mankind is fulfilled in Christ’s coming in glory that we shall have a perfect All Saints’ Day.
Conclusion: Now and forever we are gathered together as the Saints of God. The church on earth and the church in Heaven is separated only by time and space. We are separated only for a little while. But together we sing the praise of God who has said, (Isaiah 26:1), In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: “We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks. 2 Open the gates that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. 3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. 4 Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock. 19 Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You, who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! On that great day we will continue to celebrate All Saints Day forever. Amen.