[Sermon Archive]

This Week's Sermon ALL SAINTS' DAY AND THE COMMEMORATION OF THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED 01 November 2007 "Remembering and Looking Forward" 1 John 3:1-3 LSB Series C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

All Saints' Day is different than the other days when we commemorate specific saints like St. John the Evangelist or St. Peter or St. Paul or St. Mary. There are no specific names attached to it other than the names we give tonight. In other words, this is the "everyman's saint day." It is the day for the saints whose names are too numerous to remember. There isn't a specific text to which we can point where any of them are mentioned by name, but that doesn't make them any less important than the usual list of saints we remember during the liturgical year. Most of these people have done nothing noteworthy to cause them to be remembered by the Church by name. They haven't done anything extraordinary to get their names in history books. They were born, were baptized, lived the Christian life, and died. Martyrdom was not part of their history, either. They were simply Christian people, people who died in faith in Christ and who now enjoy the nearer presence of Christ.

Many times I have heard people say, "I'm no saint," to indicate that they consider themselves far from perfect. Of course, that's true of all of us, but there are those who believe that sainthood indicates perfection that one is able to achieve. Most of our thinking about saints has been influenced by Rome's definition of saints. Unfortunately, that definition is quite unscriptural because it believes that a certain level of perfection is possible in this life. In the Roman Catholic model, a person's works makes him or her a saint. Sainthood is thus earned.

But that isn't scriptural. With Luther, in his Large Catechism, we confess:

⁹¹The Word of God is the true holy thing above all holy things. Indeed, it is the only one we Christians acknowledge and have. Though we had the bones of all the saints or all the holy and consecrated vestments gathered together in one heap, they could not help us in the slightest degree, for they are all dead things that can sanctify no one. But God's Word is the treasure that sanctifies all things. By it all the saints themselves have been sanctified. ⁹²At whatever time God's Word is taught, preached, heard, read, or pondered, there the person, the day, and the work are sanctified by it, not on account of the external work but on account of the Word which makes us all saints.¹

We don't like being called something we are not, or at least, something we don't want to be. If someone accuses me of being quick tempered, I'll immediately fire off a denial! Tell your teenager that she is a slob because her room looks like a tornado just went through it and she'll likely deny it. But when God calls us saints, we'll probably deny it, too, because we know the reality of our sinful lives.

But in our Epistle the Apostle John essentially calls us saints.

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him." (1 John 3:1, ESV)

Never mind the complicated formula that the Roman Church has established, the extraordinary list of good works, merits, and miracles! In the Smalkald Articles Luther remarks:

. . . thank God, a seven-year-old child knows what the church is, namely, holy believers and sheep who hear the voice of their Shepherd. ³So children pray, "I believe in one holy Christian church." Its holiness does not consist of surplices, tonsures, albs, or other ceremonies of theirs which they have invented over and above the Holy Scriptures, but it consists of the Word of God and true faith.²

"Holy believers and sheep who hear the voice of their Shepherd." That's what you are! That's why you are saints, all appearances to the contrary, because Christ's merits make you saints even though you don't believe that you qualify. In a few minutes we'll read the list of the saints whom we commemorate this evening. They have all been ordinary people, most of them relatives of yours, fellow members in this congregation whose memory we honor this evening. They weren't extraordinary persons. I can tell you that those to whom I ministered weren't extraordinary. We liked them, loved them, even respected them. Maybe some we didn't particularly like or even respect, but they were and are saints nonetheless. Christ made them saints. Tonight we remember what God did in them, calling them to faith in his Son, Jesus Christ, and keeping them in this faith until they died.

John goes on to say that we look forward to something, what we shall be. You see, you and I are not always what we should be. That part we will readily admit in the face of absolute holiness.

"Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2, ESV)

You are saints now, but you are not fully what you shall be. In this life you do not always reflect the life of Christ as you should, but after your death you shall because then you shall be perfectly purified. This body of sin will be left behind in the grave and you will be like Christ. You will reflect him, John says, perfectly!

This perfection will be according to body and soul. No more will sin reign in your mortal body. No more will you struggle against the Old Adam. No more will there be tears and sorrow, pain, mourning, or death. These shall all be gone. Passing through death and the grave you will awaken to the beauty and perfection of heaven because that is where Christ our Lord is in his glory. That is where those we remember this evening are, enjoying the perfect bliss of being in Christ's nearer presence.

Tonight we are shown again this glorious picture of our heavenly destiny, this place of beauty and perfection, the abode of all the saints who have gone to Christ's nearer presence, so that we are encouraged and strengthened. On this day we remember them, not because of what they have done, but because of what Christ has done for them and in them. The live forever in heavenly glory and bliss because Christ has conquered for us all. What they experience you too shall one day experience. You shall join the saints in glory by remaining in Christ Jesus by faith. This, too, shall be yours.

And so, today is a day of "Remembering and Looking Forward." It is a day to commemorate and to rejoice, to thank God for all that he has done and still does to keep you in the true faith. It is a time to ask God to continue to be faithful to you and to all Christians. It is a time to enter into communion with Christ our Lord and with the whole heavenly host and to praise his holy name for his gifts. And it is a day to remember and be comforted by John's vision of what shall be for you:

"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen." Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?" I said to him, "Sir, you know." And he said to me, "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. "Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. 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."" (Revelation 7:9-17, ESV)

¹Tappert, T. G. (2000, c1959). The book of concord : The confessions of the evangelical Lutheran church (377). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
²Tappert, T. G. (2000, c1959). The book of concord : The confessions of the evangelical Lutheran church (315). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.