- Psalmody: Liturgical Text; Psalm 33:1; Psalm 34:9, 10b; Psalm 118:15a; Psalm 32:11; Matthew 19:28a, 29b
- Lection: Revelation 7:2-17; 1 John 3:1–3; Matthew 5:1–12
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ to St. John, the final book of the Holy Scriptures, is not written to be a troubling puzzle but a comforting and reassuring vision of what is, what was, and what is to come. Avoid not the words within it, for the book itself begins with promise: Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near. On this All Saints Day, hear the Word of the Lord and keep the great hope of Christ that it gives your heart now and forevermore, for this time shall end. These tribulations shall be no more. Satan himself knows that time, his time, is limited. He knows the Great and Awesome Day of the Lord cometh quickly and that he, and all those united with him in unbelief and rejection of the Christ, will tremble at the loud sound of the angel’s trumpet, at the sight of the heavens being rolled back like a scroll, and at the King of Glory coming again on the clouds to judge both the living and the dead. All we who are redeemed by Christ and still dwell upon the earth gather regularly and confess in our creeds the unstoppable truth that we are all closer the End each and every day. Amen! Come quickly, Lord Jesus!
Revelation seven recounts St. John’s vision of the one Holy Christian and Apostolic Church, the very Communion of Saints. Wherever there is life wrought about by faith in the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the earth, there is the Holy Church, the whole collective of God’s people; those redeemed by the shed blood of the only-begotten Son. His Church is His people, just as His kingdom is wherever His Holy Spirit has called sinners by the Gospel, enlightened us with His gifts, sanctified and kept us in Jesus Christ in the one true faith. Beloved, it is Christians who make up the Holy Church of Christ, members of His Body by faith, blessed stones built upon Him into the New Jerusalem that shall stand forever in victory over her enemies of sin, death, and the devil. It is you, Jerusalem the Golden, that the Lord prepares by His blessed means for all that lies ahead, both here and yonder, two places and times that are actually not so far apart.
We see through St. John’s eyes what is beheld by faith in Word and promise. We see in this Revelation text two groupings within the Holy Christian Church. The first is those numbered at 144,000; a symbolic number of the blessed twelve being multiplied by itself 10,000 times over. In the Scriptures are the 12 tribes bearing in their flesh the promise of God given to Abraham that his seed shall be as the stars in the heavens and as the sand upon the seashore. This is succeeded by the twelve holy apostles through whom we have received the ministry of reconciliation with God. Thus, as these twelve thousands in Revelation are named off in regimented order akin to a great army, we have a glimpse of ourselves and all our brothers and sisters in Christ still alive in the flesh marching as to war. For we are in a great war that will continue until the Lord comes again. We do battle against the devil and his minions. We do battle against the sin that rages within us that longs to love ourselves and the things of this fleeting age more than we love God and what is to come. We do battle against death because even though it has been defeated, it is still a tribulation to be faced but for a time; to detest, to suffer through. All the Church Militant still has personal death to taste, it awaits us all, and to sweeten the bitterness of it, the Lord gives us glorious revelation to strengthen our hearts that we may die well and in good courage, firm in faith in Him. And He gives this glorious revelation so that we may also mourn and hope well for those whom we love who have died in the faith.
There are many among us who have not suffered from cancer, traumatic accident, mental illness, heart disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, stroke, and the like. But there is not one who has not had death strike near, intimately near upon the heart, as it taken many from among us whom we love, respect, and now miss dearly. Father, mother, husband, wife, brother, sister, child, friend, beloved fellow church member. There have been many a death to affect us all, yet it is death that has lost its victory. It is death that has lost its everlasting sting.
All Saints is a feast day to celebrate the Victorious Lamb of God in Whom rest all those we love dearly who have died in the faith, for that is where our eyes are drawn as the Holy Writ itself tells of John’s eyes going from the 144,000 to a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands. It is a picture of the Church in glory, robed in Christ, gathered to worship Him. Yet, is this not also a description of us already?
It is good that the voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous; both places in which God’s righteous gather in heaven and on earth; they in glory there, we still in the flesh here in a life in which we still love, mourn, and miss as those whose undertakings are but toils and troubles and heartbreakings. Yet, we rejoice as we remember those now asleep in Christ, for they neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun does not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shepherds them and leads them to living fountains of waters. And God wipes away every tear from their eyes. In that way, we are happy for them, relieved that they are no longer oppressed with sorrow and misgiving. This innumerable multitude is a vision of the Church Triumphant, the other group from among the whole Body of Christ that now rest in and with Him. They have finished their race, now at rest in peace awaiting the final act of God’s judgment, and they will never again experience tribulation and persecution on earth. They seem so far off from us who are here below, still in a dungeon living, but there is an aspect about life in Christ to which we may cling in great joy on this feast day regarding communion with our deceased loved ones.
More than our finite minds can ever fully grasp is the reality of God reconciling sinners to Himself through the sacrifice of His eternal Son made flesh here below. Our Lord Jesus has defeated death and ascended, preparing a place for all those who trust in Him that where He is, there they may be also. Yet, He has not entirely left us here. Here is not merely there awaiting the death of His saints. Lo, He is with us even to the end of the age and He has instituted divine gifts by which heaven and earth are brought together in Him. In Him, the true Jacob’s Ladder between heaven and earth, we partake in things that are not empty shadows or vain copies of all the glory that is still yet to come: no more hunger, no more pain, no more tears, no more death. The Divine Service in which the Church gathers on earth takes place with Jesus in the midst. Yea, He is the One in the midst of those in heaven and He is the One in our midst below. The pure and blissful liturgy of heaven, in which all the faithful who have died in Christ worship the Lamb, is the fulfilled liturgy for which our hearts long participate in, because of Christ, and because of those gathered around Him.
Our grieving hearts are set upon the coming Eternal Day that awaits beyond the end of all these trying ones, in which we, too, shall neither hunger nor thirst anymore; in which we, too, shall worship the Lamb in purity and bliss; in which we, too, shall do so while reunited with those who have gone before us whom we love and miss dearly now. But children of God, we in the Church Militant live in what is to be considered an inaugurated eschatology; fancy words, for sure, but easy to understand. Inaugurated: meaning begun, kicked off, started already. Eschatology: meaning the doctrine, the teaching, the understanding about the life of the world to come; eternity; everything good that lies in wait, by God’s promise and doing, beyond this life. Inaugurated Eschatology describes aspects of what is to come having already begun in the lives of all who are a part of Christ’s Holy Church. Some aspects of what is to come are current reality. So, when you as a believer in Christ, come together in Him to receive the eternal gifts that He has given to His whole Church, the liturgy in which we participate here is one that He brings into joyous unified voice and communion with the heavenly one. When you commune in the Body and Blood of the One Who is in heaven and earth, you partake of your Lord with the whole company of heaven, your loved ones included, who commune with Him there. It is an inaugurated reality that you now tap into already in preparation for the fullness that awaits.
The reality of the Sacrament of the Altar is heaven and earth meeting in the collective worship of Christ and the faithful reception of His medicine of immortality, as the saints do both here and there, for immortality is what both we and they possess. So, think not the latter part of Revelation chapter seven as being far off either in space or in time. Let not the liturgy ever become empty repetition that your mind, heart, and tongue take for granted and quickly just pass over, for eternity is breaking in to this fractured, waning time. Every time that you hear, “Lift up your hearts,” reply with this understanding in mind when you say, “We lift them up unto the Lord,” that you are lifting them up in Christ Who brings heaven here to you by His Holy Word and Sacrament. It is true that with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we together in the Communion of All Saints in heaven and on earth laud and magnify His glorious Name and commune together in our worship of the Lamb.
Heaven is not so far off. Your proximity to it, to Him, to them, doesn’t so much rest on your age or the likely nearing the end of this life as it does to you gathering here in Christ and in His Holy Communion. It is in the Person of Jesus that heaven and earth come together now, so that though we do not see them, all saints, Militant and Triumphant, are one in Christ our Lord. May He Who dwells among all in His Church preserve our hearts and minds in courageous hope as we endure until the Day when all His Church is forever Triumphant.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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