Christian, Evangelical, Lutheran
Church
All Saints' Day at Mount Calvary Church
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The basis of our meditation this morning is from St. John’s vision of the saints in Revelation chapter 7 that was just read.
Yesterday I attended the cross-country finals on a cool day for a challenging hilly course. Hundreds of competitors, male and female, lined up to run this long-distance race where the first leg was a massive stampede to the first chute, as runners fought for their positions, downhill with winds at their backs. That first mile might have been easy, but the second mile, lonely in the back of the course without any spectators, contained those runners sought to go the distance. The last mile, a slow and steady incline out of the hollows, the wind now at the face, was a fight to the finish. Yesterday, I saw those running the race.
Today we recall that we are running the race (1 Cor. 9:24), a long distance one and that we set aside a special day each year to recall those who have reached the finish line. At the end of the race yesterday, names were called as individuals got to stand at dais, some standing, some seated with proud smiles on their faces for all their work and accomplishments. And today too we read the names, those on our Mount Calvary team who have successfully come to the finish line. At the end, any race feels like death. It is hard to keep running. One wants to sit, stop, and quit. So to those who came to the end of their race did so with challenge and difficulty, sighing their last breaths with nothing left to give. For us here, we miss their company on the course, the fellow runners we have seen here, who have encouraged us on our way. We have many more competitions left, and now we do so without our favored and seasoned team members to cheer us on, yet we are happy and cheer and rejoice, even with tear-stained faces, at their noble wins.
They have gained the seats in the stadium above, cheering us on now from that happy crowd above who are now with Christ. They all have medals around their neck. God has given them their reward and approval. Jesus, their Lord has seen them safely home. Any competitor who has won a competition and finished the race, recalls the stories of the legs of the journey. I was in the front pack and then I lagged behind. I went out too quickly on the first mile, but I regained my stride and started my march forward from the back. And so today we recall and think about their journeys, how they ran their race, the stories of their running, how some of these names we read today were taken too soon, or some after long illnesses or lives ready to go home. Yet we do so also realizing in this day that the race will someday be over for us too. In them we learn a valuable lesson. We won’t be running forever. Our work continues but we go thinking about that distant land above, and the day when we too will cross that finish line and get that ribbon and medal around our neck, and meet the saints with Lord. For 1 Corinthians 9:24 says, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? …run that you may obtain it.” And Hebrews 12:1 says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” And a tired and weary Apostle Paul said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:7-8
Today is a day of tears and tears of joy. We are happy and sad. Joyful yet mournful. Relieved yet burdened. In today’s Epistle we hear that story. John’s vision in the Book of Revelation took place while he was on the island of Patmos. Because of the persecution of Christians of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, John had to leave his congregation away in exile to avoid potential death, being sought out as one of Jesus own. He saw these visions which gave courage to Christian saints back home that they could have strength on earth because of this knowledge that death was not the end. They believed in the resurrection of the body so could face the paltry threats this world gave. Loss of reputation, body, possessions, life was the best the world could throw at them. Things would get even tougher, but they had a Savior who gave His life for them, and their home was above, and though they would die, yet would they live. John receives and gives this joy-filled comfort in this wonderful book.
Today we wish to look at three things in this vision. (1) The seal, (2) the diverse makeup of the company in heaven, and (3) what the meaning of the robes washed in blood is. The things we look at are different and unexpected. The meaning in biblical texts is often in the surprise, what happens which is different than what you thought.
First, we see that before the last and final stand the saints receive the seal of the living God. The angels who have God’s destructive powers in their hands are held back from their sending of the final judgment on unbelief until all the servants of God are marked on their forehead. This speaks that those who will be saved in the persecution are protected and spared not by their own strength or powers but by what God did for them. How will we stand? By what God has done. We are reminded of the Jews in Egypt who survived that fearsome day of judgment when the angel of death passed over that land. They were spared from death not because of anything good in themselves or merit in them, they were but slaves, but by God giving them the gift of the Passover Lamb whose innocent and young blood, slaughtered, dripped out, collected and painted with a hyssop branch on their homes, made a red mark on the wooden beams of their homes. To have that mark on the doorway meant to have divine protection that came through the blood of the Lamb, the angel of death would see that holy mark and would Passover. Am I one of the ones who have been chosen, sealed, signed with the sign of the bloody cross upon my forehead? They received the mark that would protect them. And so too as we face the coming days, we are encouraged to see that we are spared, not by what we do, or some merit or worthiness in us, but by what God has done for us by the Lamb who was slain but now lives.
Where the church is, where the truly preached Gospel is and where God’s sacraments are administered rightly, there God is at work calling and gathering, enlightening and sanctifying His ones and keeping them in the faith to life everlasting. Where the Church is, there God is at work. As Lutheran Christians, we are not Calvinists who attempt to peek behind the curtain at some eternal decree, what we can never uncover or know but must live each day in fearful wonder of, but we lay hold of the means by which we see visibly and know concretely in the means that His Son gives. He elects us in Christ. In your life it is best not to ask the question,
“Am I a Christian?”, “Have I done enough?”, but instead “has Jesus died for me, has His holy water been poured out on me in baptism, has he made His promises to me in them, am I His? Don’t look inward or into the dark abyss before time, look outward and say. I have been sealed. Look what God’s promises say about me. I cling to them by faith. Has the Lord fed me today with His Word and Supper? Did He die for me. Did Christ die for me. I will be preserved!
For Jesus said in John 10:14, 28, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” And Paul writes in Ephesians 1:13, “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.” (See also 2 Cor 1:22) And 1 Timothy 2:19 concludes, “But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his.” 1 Tim 2:19
The 144,000 stand poised to be launched out into a world of turmoil and suffering. They are quite aware of the peril they face yet are confident of God’s sealing protection. Yet the church triumphant at rest in peace. It is an ongoing thing here now as God calls us to faith in Him, as He enlightens us with His gifts, as He serves us with His word, He is sealing us with the Holy Spirit. Further the gift of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper is God’s sign and seal where He marks us as His own. God’s work of preaching where God calls His holy ones by the Gospel and enlightens them with his gifts and seals them. Sealing is a continual event, not a past one, whereby the saints are strengthened for battle.
Second, we see the company of heaven. This week at the airport in Detroit as I returned from seeing my mother it seemed that I was in a foreign world. Some of you know how Detroit has become a hub of nationalities, but not all nationalities that I feel comfortable with, but far distant from mine in the Middle East. And yet we see in heaven that there is a group of people that looks like more of a crowd in an airport line. While before Babel the earth was of one language, you would think it would be different, but after heaven that one language will not return! And yet while they speak in different voices, and languages they together say the same thing. We are united not by culture or language but on the common refrain that we sing. This teaches us also of the individuality which will be known. Our loved ones can be found. As the voice of a mother giraffe can be heard in a large grouping by the baby giraffe, so also in this vast multitude we will know those whom we loved. Second, we see that in heaven they sing first! What would it be like if you took my parts? We all know that the minister or those leading congregational song sing first. We sing antiphonally like we will in heaven, and the choir or pastor always goes first. But here the order is reversed. Those in heaven who have made it there burst forth in praise that cannot be contained. The nations turn and lead the worship of God, and the angels respond with their resounding, “Yes and Amen.”
Their joy cannot be contained. And their only song is this. About Jesus, the slain lamb who now lives and His Father who have done it. Here below we are bidden to sing. Singing comes hard. We must be encouraged. But there we will enjoy a singing where choir practice will never end, where we will never want to quit where Michael Owens will be the happiest. But even then what does heaven look like? It looks a bit like here. I asked someone this week what they thought of All Saints’ Day. All Saints Day with all the white and the remembrance of the dead reminds me a bit of heaven. The joy of God the peace and rest of the saints is here. We join them and are joined to them in one Church together. But then it ends and we go back in the world. But there will come a day where the church service will have no end and the joy of what we know here of brothers and sisters in Christ, fellowship with the lamb, forgiveness and peace and suffering and persecution will be no more. What we know here in part, that eyes are dried, suffering is released will be in its fullness. This is more than victory against persecution. No more anger in my heart that destroys my life. No more lust that makes me see people as objects.
No more sinful nature that fails to love God as I ought. It will be buried and dead never to rise again. I will be me as I was made to be. Unique and different than any other, but will my so called imperfections be there? I remember my father’s slightly crooked teeth. I hope even in the resurrection they will be there because his new teeth looked quite fake! We will see even in the homely person a beauty that we had not recognized. We will see God’s creation unhindered by the burden of sin and death. Those having handicaps who suffered in this life will be with them no more. But they will carry them as a badge of victory. It did not win over them!
Our loved ones retain their identity. All that made them is known. Their language, their tribe, their nationality. And yet we find identity not as we find the center in self, but as we have found our center before the throne, before God. It is not in our individual lives that we find ourselves, but it is here that we find ourselves and can go forth from here to do our work joined by those who go with us. Our third and last point is that they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. Yes, it is true. We have a blood that makes even dirty garments white. We have a savior, a Lamb who was sacrificed for us and shed His blood to make us clean. At home my children have to be encouraged to do their laundry. Sometimes their closets are not always the best smelling. Our Lord encourages us to do our spiritual wash. We wash our baptismal garments, soiled and dirty by sins of thought word and dead in a red detergent that gets out even the most stubborn stains. John writes in His Gospel about the blood pouring down from Jesus side. He was there. John writes and says that He is the Passover. Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Hebrews says that there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood.
John writes that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. We remember the old American hymn.
“What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. O precious is the flow that makes me white as snow; no other fount I know; nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
But there is more to this washing, these are those who joined Jesus in His suffering. Christianity is not a religion that says Jesus suffered so that I don’t have to. Christianity is a religion that says Come, Follow Me. Come be my disciple. Walk in my way and path. And Jesus told Peter that anyone who does not pick up His cross daily cannot be His disciple. In Baptism we stand with the martyrs. We wish to follow Jesus to death. We want to die too and fight faithfully. We want to walk in His consecrated path. This may mean the hatred of the world.
They have washed their robes in blood. They have poured forth their blood. Their life blood pours out. We do not win by holding on to our lives but by sacrificing them. Christians are the last which shall be first, the poor which are great, the hungering which no longer thirst, the mourning which find forever comfort, and the persecuted and pure in heart that will see God. They are priests with robes of white. Priests serve. We stand with the martyrs who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. What would it be like to live as a Christian in Nigeria, to know that there are no structures of support to shield and protect you from evil when you go to your church on Sunday morning, to worship near the wastelands not knowing who might show up that day and kill everyone in your congregation. Islamic terror groups such are discriminately targeting and killing believers in horrific numbers. About 7,000 Christians have been murdered for their beliefs just this year, The Christian aid group Open Doors reported that over 16.2 million Christians across sub-Saharan Africa, including a large number of Nigerians, have been recently driven from their homes by violence. Groups like the Fulani fighters and Islamic State West Africa Province, along with Boko Haram, kill many Christian men and kidnap and sexually batter women. More Christians are martyred in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world. At the conclusion of a race all cheer and shout. You can do it, morphs into, you’ve done it. We on the sidelines, it makes us want to get in the game. Satan did not win against and so let him not win against us. Let’s get back in the field and do our work. The 144,000 are the tribes being mustered for battle at the end of the age. We are sealed. Our life is before us. We will die in the fight.
We go forward as those who have received God’s Sign. The bible says the Lord knows whose are his, and we know too, by reason of the signs God has given. His Word is preached to us, Baptism and the Sacrament have been given to us. We stand, a vast army, in heaven and earth, the church militant and triumphant, joined by Jesus blood.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The peace of God which passes all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds through faith in Jesus Christ.
