Sermon for All Saints (5-Nov-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

May you be strengthened with his power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

When you hear the word “saint”, what do you normally think of? I think most people probably think of particularly significant Christian people who lived a wonderful life on this earth, who have now died.

Now the word “saint” actually means a “holy person”. When we talk about saints, it can mean two different things: it can mean those Christian people who have now died, but it can also mean Christian people who are still living, and who are wrestling in this life, and struggling with their sin and their problems. The first kind of saint—a saint who has left this earthly life—is a person who is now free of sin, but the second kind of saint—a Christian person who is still alive—is a person who is still wrestling with their sin. The second kind of saint is also a sinner at the same time as being a saint, whereas the first kind is not a sinner anymore because they have been set free from sin having passed through death. But we’ll come back to this in a minute.

Let’s talk about the communion of saints. In the Apostle’s Creed, we say that we believe in the “communion of saints”. And this is actually another name for the church itself. Now how does a person become a saint, and become part of this communion of saints? Well—Jesus sends out his workers with his Holy Spirit to gather a church to Himself, using the word of God, and the Sacraments: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. So Jesus himself actually calls us to be part of his kingdom, to be part of his fellowship, to be part of his communion, through his living word, which is spoken on earth. That’s what the church is here for: to make sure that God’s word is spoken here on earth, so that sinners may come to Jesus and be made part of his kingdom. Sinners—like you and me—enter into the kingdom of Jesus by being baptised, by being born again by water and the Spirit, or as St Paul says, being washed with water and the word. Holy Baptism is that wonderful event where Jesus gathers us to himself and brings us into his kingdom, and gives us his Holy Spirit. And Jesus doesn’t just set us out on the road to heaven, but he also feeds us along the way, and gives us his body and blood to eat and drink in the Lord’s Supper. And so, Jesus continually gathers us together and strengthens us on the road.

Now, the word of God, and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, are not given to the church on earth as some kind of magic charm. Jesus doesn’t want us to look at his word and at baptism or at the Lord’s Supper as if we’re some cow in a paddock, starting at a new blade of grass in the field. No—the word of God—which is also the thing that empowers baptism and the Lord’s Supper—calls us to faith. The reason why God speaks his word, and baptises us and gives us the Lord’s Supper, is so that we believe in it! In fact, through God’s word, the Holy Spirit creates faith in our hearts. God gives us his word of law—to call us to repent, and to change our lives, and live differently. This word shows us that we are sinners. But then he also gives us sinners his word of Gospel—which points us to Christ, and what he has done for us in his death and resurrection from the dead. And it is the Gospel that makes us saints, that makes us holy people—not because we are already perfect or because we had made such an good effort, but because of Christ and his holiness. Christ then takes his righteousness and his holiness and he completely covers over all of our sin with it. Our whole lives as Christians is then learning to recognise our sin, to put it behind us, and to receive the forgiveness of sins. A Christian person, or a holy person, or a saint, is not someone who has achieved perfection in this life, because that is impossible. The only person who has lived a completely sinless life is Jesus. But when we trust in Jesus, and his sinlessness, and his holiness, then God takes your account and adds all of your sin to Jesus’ account. He charges the bill to Jesus, and Jesus paid it in full with his blood. And then God takes all of the righteousness, and holiness, and perfection that belongs to Jesus, and he adds it to your account. This is what it means in Genesis 15, where we read that Abraham believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Because of Jesus, God has counted his righteousness to your account. This means that are now free to begin a Christian life, a saintly, holy life. You will never achieve perfection in this life, but you will only begin it, one step and one day at a time, with Jesus your Saviour guiding you along the way, and forgiving all your new sins and mess-ups along the way.

Now, even though God calls us through his word and his sacraments, it is only the Holy Spirit who creates faith in people. There are some people who hear and are baptised, and who come to the Lord’s Supper, but don’t believe in them. They people are not saints, but are hypocrites. They are only part of the church in an outward, external way. This is a communion which includes believers and non-believers, saints and non-saints. But there is also an internal, hidden, spiritual communion of saints, which exists only among those who believe the promises of God in His word, and believe in God’s work in their baptism, and believe in Jesus’ work and presence and gifts in the Lord’s Supper.

But then, the bible uses the word “saints” in two ways, as we mentioned before. The first way is to mean those who trust in Jesus in this life and are still fighting against sin and the devil, and are still living their Christian life under the cross. But the second way the bible uses the word “saints” is to mean those people who have endured their hardship but are now in heaven, praising God. So for example, in Acts we read that Peter came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. This is the first meaning, referring to people like us, who are both saints and sinners at the same time. Many of the letters of Paul are addressed to the saints who are at Corinth, or at Rome, or wherever. But then we also have examples of the second meaning, such as when after Jesus died there was an earthquake, and it says: many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. Here “saints” means those who were no longer sinners, but had died.

So, when we say that we believe in the “communion of saints”, what are we talking about? Are we talking about a communion of people on this earth who are both saints and sinners like us, or are we talking about a communion of people in heaven who have finished their struggle with sin and who are now perfect? The answer is that both we Christians who are alive and those Christians who are dead are together one communion of saints. St Paul says that we Christians are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. So when we call the church “the communion of saints”, we mean not just the members of the church that are still doing battle in this life, and fighting the good fight of faith, and wrestling against their sin, but also the church in heaven that is now perfect and glorious. We are altogether one church, one communion of saints. There are not two communions, but only one communion. There are not two churches, but one church. Sometimes we call the church on earth the “church militant” and the church in heaven the “church triumphant”. We are all one church, we are just on different sides of the grave. We are still struggling, but their struggle is completely over now.

In Hebrews chapter 12, the writer reveals to us something that is very special about what it is that we are part of when we gather here as the church. We read: You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; and to the multitude of many thousands of angels and to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven; and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Now, we could talk about those verses all day, but listen to those words that we have come to the multitude of many thousands of angels, to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven…to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. Those who have died in the Christian faith are with Jesus, and we also in this life on earth come to meet the same Jesus. We Christians don’t just share all kinds of wonderful blessings of the Holy Spirit with each other here on this earth in the church, but we also belong to the same fellowship, the same communion of those holy people and saints who are already in heaven. In Ephesians 2, it says that God raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In Colossians, we read that our heavenly Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. To be transferred out of darkness into Jesus’ kingdom means to enjoy now the fellowship not just with other Christians on this earth, but also to be one fellowship with all those who have already died and are now in Paradise with Jesus.

In our order of service that we use week after week, we say some words before the Lord’s Supper which reflect this teaching. When we have the Lord’s Supper, we sing a song called the “Holy, holy, holy”, or in Latin, it is called the “Sanctus”. This song is sung by angels in the bible. We read about the angels singing these words in the book of Isaiah and also in Revelation. But before we sing this, the pastor says that we are singing “with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven”. Not only are the angels singing with us but also those who have died in the faith, the company of heaven. This is a wonderful confession of faith, and it shows us just what the church on earth is. But it’s not as if the church in heaven are simply joining in with us—the worship of God is going on constantly in heaven, and when we join together as Christians to worship him, we are simply joining in with them. They add their voices to ours, and we add our voices to theirs.

But before we finish this sermon today, I’d like to mention one more thing. When it comes to understanding what it means to live a holy life and to share in God’s holiness, let’s go back to the Garden of Eden. When the first people, Adam and Eve, were created, they were perfect, holy, and pure. God had created them in his image. This is the first state or condition of the human race. And what a wonderful thing it must have been to live like that and to have been there!

But then, after that, things changed: there was the fall. Adam and Eve sinned, and since that time, every single human being (except Jesus himself) was conceived and born in sin. Before the fall, there was no sin. But after the fall, then there was sin, and the human race came under the judgment of God.

But then, later, something else changed: there came a Saviour. Jesus died for us on the cross, and he won for us the forgiveness of sins, and he sends us the Holy Spirit. Now, as Christians in this life, it’s not as though we now live without sin, but our sin is forgiven, and is not charged to our account anymore. So we live then as people who are both holy, and saints, but who also live struggling and wrestling against our sin.

So what happens when we die? Well, our bodies and our souls are separated, and for the first time, we will be completely free of our sin. On one hand, we will depart to be with Christ, as it says in Philippians 1. Just like Jesus promised to the thief on the cross, on the day of his death, Today you will be with me in Paradise. But this is not the end. Because God didn’t simply create us as spirits, or souls, but he created us with bodies. In Genesis 2, it says: then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. So what’s going to happen to our bodies? Are they just empty shells, empty husks? No—the Scripture also promises a resurrection of the dead. St Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15: Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must on immortality.

Now, when we go the shop and buy a packet of chips, we throw away the packet in the bin. But God does not treat our bodies like an empty chip packet! He created our bodies, and so in a glorious way, at the end of the world, he promises to glorify our earthly bodies in a new way, and to reunite and redeem our bodies from the dust and the ashes and the ground, and raise them up, and reunite them with our spirits and souls. On one hand, when we die, our souls go to be with Jesus in heaven. On the other hand, our bodies will be buried in the ground. But there will also be a time when body and soul is reunited in a glorious and wonderful way, and our bodies will be raised from the dead. How we will go through this after we have died, we don’t know. At least, we know that we won’t be waiting for all this out in some sort of corridor, or in purgatory, but in heaven with Jesus. But remember, that when that time comes, we will enter not into a life with minutes and days and hours, but as the bible says, eternal life. God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.  St Paul also says in Philippians: Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Do you see the wonderful victory of the resurrection of the dead in this passage? Even in 1 Corinthians 15, St Paul says that Christ is the firstborn to rise from the dead. This means that the reason Christ rose from the dead was so that he would be the first, and to point your eyes forward to the day when you also will be risen from the dead. This is what we say in the creed when we say: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Now, on the other hand, there is another way in which people look at these things, which is not correct. Instead of seeing Adam and Eve created in the “image of God”, people see humans as having been created as “little gods”. Then when the fall happened, they believe that the problem is that people forget that were created as little gods, and their sin is not that they disobey God, but that they just don’t live up their potential. Then instead of treating Jesus as their Saviour, they see him just as their teacher, who came to remind us humans of the knowledge that we forgot that we really were created as “little gods” after all. And then, when we die, what happens? Instead of believing that they then become free from their sin, they believe that that as “little gods” they are now free from their bodies. This means that they think the body is a bad thing, and just an empty chip packet to be thrown away. But if the body is a bad thing, why did Jesus have one? Why did he choose to have nails and spears put through it? God created us human beings with both body and soul, and he has his Son to redeem us in body and soul, and he will also make us holy in body and soul. And so, this is why, after the Lord’s Supper, we say: The body of our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy precious blood strengthen and preserve you in body and soul to life eternal.

So let’s praise our God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, for drawing us together in faith into one communion of saints, with all believing Christians throughout the world and all those who have died in Christ. And let’s also praise him for the promise that he has made to us to raise us up with him on the last day together with all those who have died in the faith, who are alive with him. Amen.

Dear Jesus, once again today we come to you to sing our “Holy, holy, holy” with the angels, the archangels and all the company of heaven. Strengthen our faith by the power of your Holy Spirit, until that time when we depart to be with you, and enjoy life together with you in Paradise with all your saints. Amen.