*“Singing with the Saints”*
All Saints’ Day (Observed)
Revelation 7:9-17
November 3, 2013
23*rd* Sunday after Trinity
*IN NOMINE JESU*
Some of us will likely spend some time today, apart from our time
here in Divine Service, thinking about those who were near and dear to us
and have died, now resting in the arms of Jesus. For the past few days I
have been thinking about a friend of mine, a brother in the pastoral
office. Pastor Hartley—Dean, as I knew him—and I graduated from the
seminaries in 2001, he from St. Louis and I from Ft. Wayne. We both
received calls to dual parishes in North Dakota. A man with a quick wit
and a sense of humor, he was also a nice guy and very pastoral. Recently
he experienced some issues with his heart. A couple of weeks ago he went
to a hospital in the Twin Cities to undergo heart surgery. By the grace of
God he was able to return to North Dakota, where he still served, and just
last Sunday confirmed two young ladies to whom he had taught the Christian
faith into which they had become baptized. Days after heart surgery, he
returns to his congregation to carry out his pastoral duties of preaching,
confirming, and giving the body and blood of the Lord, including to those
two girls for the first time. Two days later, this past Tuesday, the Lord
of life called Pastor Dean Hartley to his eternal rest, and his funeral was
yesterday. Over the past few days I thought about Dean, his friendship,
and our respective ministries. But as November 1, the actual date for All
Saints’ Day, came, I thought about the text for today’s meditation. What
came to mind is that Dean is now at the marriage feast of the Lamb in His
kingdom, which has no end, now before the throne of God, singing the song
of the saints in heaven, the same song he sang here on earth. We sang that
song a few moments ago:
“Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might,
be to our God forever and ever. Amen” (v.12). We sing this song as we
eagerly anticipate our Lord’s invitation to come before His Table, as He
desires to give us a foretaste of the Feast to come, that Feast which Dean
and all the saints who have gone before us get to enjoy, that same Feast we
dearly crave. But for now we have to wait.
We sing the song of the saints because, by the grace of God, we
are among the saints. We sing their song because it is our song as well.
In one of the great hymns based on the *Te Deum* we sing, “Through the
Church the song goes on” (*LSB* 940:3). We are living proof of this
because we are among the singing saints. How can this be? How can we be
considered saints when we are still sinners? Don’t saints have to do
something great to be considered saints? That kind of thinking shows that
we have bought into the false theology of other denominations, especially
that of Roman Catholicism, in which the pope, after a long process,
declares a person a saint based on that person’s faith, good works, and
miracles that person supposedly performed. Faith and works…it is this
combination they believe makes a person a saint. If that was true (and it
isn’t), then they would come out of the great tribulation on their own, and
they would wash their own robes. All too often we think good works are
necessary for salvation. Good works are necessary, but not for salvation.
We do good works not to score points with God, but we do them as a result
of the faith that is within us—faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and
Lord—faith worked in us by the Holy Spirit. It is this faith that God
looks at and declares us righteous—saints—in His sight, apart from good
works. This is what was at the heart of the Reformation, which we
celebrated last Sunday. But if we are asked whether we would go to heaven
if we died tonight, we might well say we *hope* to. And even if we don’t
say that, we certainly stop to think about it for a moment. We stop and
listen to the devil’s lies. And if we say we don’t, we are liars because
our sinful pride, the Old Adam, is speaking up, speaking the lies the devil
whispers in our ears.
Yes, our sinful pride lies for us. It lies to us. It lies to
God. Yes, we are sinners, too. We confessed this morning the truth that
we are by nature sinful and unclean. We confessed that we have sinned
against God in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we
have left undone. We confessed that we are sinners, and how do we know
that we are sinners? God Himself has said so; He has spoken to us in His
Law and pointed His finger directly at us and told us that we deserve to
die for our sins. He has called us all sinners, and He calls us to
repentance. Yes, we confessed our sins earlier, but this call to
repentance is a perpetual call because we daily sin much and surely deserve
nothing but punishment—that is, eternal condemnation be to us forever and
ever.
That’s what we deserve, but that’s not what we get, thanks be to
God! In fact, thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God
forever and ever! He has given us the gift of salvation, and “Salvation
belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb” (v. 10),
Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, has mercy
upon us, and grants us His peace. He died for the sins of the world, for
the life of the world, and for you and me, for us sinner-saints. He took
all our sins, and the sins of the whole world, to the cross, where He bled
and died for them, where He bled and died so that we and all who confess
Him would live with Him forever and ever. It is in Jesus’ blood that our
robes—our wedding garments—are washed, so that Jesus “might present her to
Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
but that she should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27), that she
would be the communion of saints, because the blood of Jesus cleanses us
from all sin. His blood washes our robes, our wedding garments, so that we
would be worthy and presentable to partake of the marriage feast of the
Lamb in His kingdom, which has no end. You see, we don’t make ourselves
worthy, presentable, or declare ourselves saints. God does that for us by
His Gospel. He raised His Son Jesus from the dead. Yes, Jesus lives! He
lives and reigns forever and ever.
Jesus lives to dwell among us, dwelling among us in His Word and
Sacraments, shepherding us with these very means of His grace. He lives to
lead us to living fountains of waters, even as the Holy Spirit led us to
our Baptism, washing our sins away with water and the Word. He lives to
feed us at His heavenly banquet, that we no longer hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for we shall be filled. He lives to feed us here today on
His body and blood, that we would be forgiven, redeemed with His precious
blood, that He would make us and all the faithful to be numbered with His
saints in glory everlasting. As we prepare to receive our Lord as He comes
to us here in His house, at His altar, in His body and blood, we unite our
voices with the angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven,
including Dean and all who have departed in the faith before us, as we laud
and magnify God’s glorious Name, evermore praising Him and singing, “Holy,
holy, holy Lord God of pow’r and might: Heaven and earth are full of Your
glory. Hosanna. Hosanna. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is He who
comes in the Name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest” (*LSB* 161), for
this, on earth, “is the feast of victory for our God. Alleluia.” Amen.
*SOLI DEO GLORIA*
_______________________________________________
Sermons mailing list
Sermons@cat41.org
http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
