All Saints' Sermon 2010

For All the Saints

Matthew 5:1-12

All Saints’ Sunday, 2010

Zion Lutheran Church

Mount Pleasant, Michigan

Pastor Jonathon Bakker

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord, Jesus Christ, amen. The Holy Scripture for our consideration this All Saints’ Sunday is the Gospel reading from St. Matthew.

And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when he was seated his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
For they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
For they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
For they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, if we were to make a list of the most important days of the year, what would they be? The top three for Christians would most likely be Christmas, Easter, and Good Friday, but putting them in any kind of order of highest importance would prove difficult; each upholds and depends on the others. Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus; the triumph of the Son of God over sin, death, and the devil. There would be no resurrection from the dead, however, without his death, which came on Good Friday. On Good Friday, God the Father gave up his only-begotten Son to die on the cross for us and pay the price for our sins and sinfulness. Still, before Jesus Christ could die, the Word first had to take on flesh in the incarnation and be born of the Virgin Mary on the very first Christmas. And the real significance behind Christmas was the purpose for which the baby in Bethlehem was born – to die for our forgiveness on Good Friday and to rise from the dead for us on Easter Sunday. Each of those days is as important as the next.
While it is not the most important holiday of the year by any means – it doesn’t even come close to those three obvious ones – my favorite day of the church year is the one we are celebrating today; All Saints’ Day.
It was not always this way, and it is not a day without its complications, but it has become the Sunday I look forward to more than any other every year. Today, everything about the faith we have in God and the life we live in this world all comes together, and gives me great comfort. It’s not a joyous day like Easter or Christmas, and it’s not as somber a day as Good Friday; but it is the one Sunday when the worst things about living in this world are held up against the greatest promise of all – everlasting life in the midst of the whole company of heaven.

All Saints’ is the day we commemorate those, who, by their lives and deaths, confess the faith to which we hold and, even now, live forever in paradise. The longer we live, though, the more complex today becomes. Death is mostly abstract until it begins to take away those you love and those who love you, and days like today tend to bring them to mind. It is easy, and the temptation is there when those memories rise up, to forget the comfort and peace our Lord gives us in the Means of Grace.

That’s why it is so important that we remember this when we confess in the creed that we believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting. We are speaking of the communion of Saints. When we say that we believe in the communion of Saints, we are saying two equally important things at the same time. First, we confess that there is a community of the faithful on earth and in heaven that consists of all who believe in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for the forgiveness of their sin. Second, we say that this body of the faithful, both the living and the dead, is eternally bound together by this communion they share in Christ.

When we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ here on earth, it is nothing less than a foretaste of the heavenly feast where the Saints are forever in the joyful presence of God and served by him. In the Offertory we will sing today, we sing the following words, which speak of the same thing. They are found in Psalm 116. “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all his people.” When we speak of the ‘presence of all God’s people,’ it could be understood as all his Saints or it could simply mean the congregation gathered together at that particular service. I believe that it is the former, and it is because of the remaining words of this Psalm that I believe that. The Psalmist goes on to say, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. O Lord, truly I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant; you have loosed my bonds. I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem.”

Those last words tell us that something significant is happening when we take up the cup of salvation in the Lord’s house and call on the name of the Lord in the presence of all his people. In the midst of you, O Jerusalem. This makes no sense if we think that the Psalmist is talking about a city in Israel, halfway around the world. But it does make sense when we understand that he is speaking about the company of the saints, whose death is precious in the Lord’s sight, in whose fellowship we live as Christians, and whose communion we share in the cup of salvation. We do not see the Saints triumphant with our eyes, but we are among them by faith. They are with us, if you will, on the other side of this communion rail, sharing with us in the same glorious feast where God serves all of us and binds us all together.

It may not seem like a big deal, but it means a lot to say that you believe in the communion of Saints, especially as we commemorate All Saints’ Day. It means that our hope in the face of the challenges we face in this life rests on God and not upon ourselves. No matter how much we would like to be prepared for everything that will ever happen to us, major or minor, this is how God teaches us to trust in him and to hope in him. The creation will continue to groan under the weight of sin and death, but God has forgiven all of our sins through the Holy Spirit he has delivered to us everlasting life. Believing in the communion of Saints means that we live with a hope that conquers all sadness and grief, and that looks forward, above all else, to the life everlasting with Christ that he promises us.

So it is not that today is more important than Christmas, Easter, or Good Friday. It is not that I have a fascination with death or dying. On All Saints’ Day, God speaks so plainly to the one thing – death as the final wages of sin – that has caused me the most sadness and fear in my life, and at the same time has given us a glimpse of the everlasting comfort and rest that awaits all who live and die in the faith. It is as our Lord spoke in the words of the Gospel, ‘Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.’ He is speaking of our greatest accusers – the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh. These things want us to fear without hope; they want us to turn from God on account of their reviling and persecuting and lies. But Jesus tells us to, ‘Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’ The greatest of those prophets was Jesus himself; our prophet, priest, and King, whose resurrection seals for us the real and lasting hope we have in eternal life.

To Christ alone be all the glory, forever and ever, amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus, our Lord, amen.