1 John 3: 2Beloved, 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.
There is a great temptation for us to think that the bonds that we had with them that have died are broken.
It’s a strong temptation. We can no longer see them, hear them, or touch them.
But our Lord through All Saints Days helps fight back against this temptation.
We have an unbroken bond in Christ with them.
O blest communion, fellowship divine!
It’s a bond that nothing can separate. There are differences between us and them, to be sure.
Beloved we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared…
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine; yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
If the bond that we have between them was our creation, then it would surely be broken.
What can separate us when we are holding onto each other? Almost anything.
Disagreements, differences, sin, hard-headedness on our part of theirs.
If we were holding onto them, then death broke that hold cleanly.
But that is not the picture that Scripture gives and All Saints Day reminds of.
Beloved, we are God’s children now.
The picture is God, our Father, holding unto us.
The picture is that in Christ all things hold together,
in Christ we are the body and He the head,
in Christ we have commonness, communion, an unbrokenbond,
in Christ we have unity,
through Christ we behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are.
If it was birth that only connected us to them, whether they were our children, our parents or our brothers and sister, then the bond is broken.
If it was only our meals that sometimes brought us together, whether they were our husbands or wives or family or friends, then the bond is broken.
If it was only our conversations that held us together, then we can thus no longer hear them nor they hear us.
But that’s not what the story of the Christian is!
Beloved, we are God’s children now.
We have a birth in baptism that binds us to the Father and binds us to all of His children, our brothers and sisters.
And we have in the Lord’s Supper a meal that binds us to Jesus together in communion with Him and with all His Church.
And we have His Word of eternal life which binds us together to hear and sing and pray and praise, a conversation that will never end
That’s the picture of All Saints Day.
Jesus is here. And they are in the presence of Jesus. Their death was not the end.
Death did not break their bonds with Jesus. Nothing can.
And nothing can separate you from bonded love of God in Christ Jesus. The Father is holding you in His hands and nothing can snatch you out of the Father’s hands.
Our preface for today will remind that we surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. It’s taken from Hebrews 12.
A witness in the Scriptures is someone who is always pointing to someone else
If we were to be looking to this great cloud of witnesses, they would have us be looking to Jesus, the founding and perfecter of their faith and ours.
That’s one of the things that’s happenings in our Rev. 7 reading.
The great multitude that no one could number are all standing before the throne and before the Lamb, having washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, all the faces and all voices are pointed to the throne and to the Lamb.
Being surrounded by that great cloud of witnesses, all pointing us with their faith and life and voices to the Lamb, our preface will continue that
that we, encouraged by their faith and strengthened by their fellowship may run with perseverance the race that is set before.
It’s a difficult race that we have been running and still have set before us.
There is pain and death and sadness.
There is sin still dwelling within us.
We are still far from treasuring everything Jesus wants us to treasure.
7“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Jesus in St. Luke adds the word “now” to some of the blessings:
21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!
And yet our sinful flesh is very bothered by the now, the sufferings of our body, the distress of our emotions, the great difficulty it is to live a life of mercy toward others, and concern for our reputation and the way other people see us as Christians.
Jesus’ blessings remind us that we are not as bound together with Him as we should be.
On All Saints Day, we don’t have to pretend the people we named were saints because they were perfect. We don’t have to justify their life and we wouldn’t want them to justify our life.
We know our lack of mercy, our lack of being pure in heart.
We know our lack of faith and doubt when it comes to our money and food and health and name.
We know the importance we place on being happy now as we too often forget about the future of blessings we have coming from the Lord who is with us now, in the good and in the bad.
If we know our lack of thinking and being and living a blessed life from Jesus, then we have began to know the gift it is to be washed clean in the Lamb’s blood.
Jesus first blessing is Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.
We are poor beggars and we need His gifts.
We are blessed because
the one who sits on the throne is not just “God.”
In our Revelation 7 reading, that’s not the only title He wants to go by, as if He will be doing the judging based on His perfection, and power and bigness and justice.
No, we thank God that when we stand before the throne, we are also standing before the Lamb, that we will be clothed not in the best of our goodness which is only but dirty, but we will be clothed in white robes,
we won’t be holding the best we have to offer, but will have palm branches in our hands and we will be crying out,
not “I was good. I was merciful. I was kind. I didn’t care what others thought of me. I always suffered well and had my priorities lined up with God’s Word,”
but “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
God and the Lamb. He is our judge.
Our Judge shed His blood for us to wash us
Our Jesus who bore our sins and was judged for us.
1 Cor. 15:56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
He gives us the victory.
Bound together with Him. Held together by Him. With Jesus at the center. We are encouraged by their faith and their fellowship to keep running the race that is set before us.
To keep living and believing that our Lord blesses us from above to live out a life of mercy, purity in heart, peacemaking, poverty in spirit, meeknesss and on and on.
The Lamb binds Himself again to us today.
We are God’s children now.
But we’re still waiting on that day when will be perfect with Him and see Him as He is.