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In the name of Jesus, amen. Most of us have been to a Christian funeral, and we know that such events are rather somber occasions marked by grief, by pain, and a very deep sense of loss. And often, the community of family and friends will gather together to sympathize and to share in the loss that they all feel. It’s really a tragic and twisted kind of irony that the more you loved the person who has died, the more you hurt. And the person who you shared your life with, as you look on that body in the casket, the law claws at your soul like nails on a chalkboard, painfully carving the words of St. Paul into your heart: “the wages of sin is death.”
We know that the bitter reality of sin and the law that lays in that casket, preaching the law to us, stares us in the face, and it is a bitter reality to deal with. We are tempted to despair. And yet, there’s something else that also happens at a Christian funeral. The gospel is preached, telling how Jesus lived, how he died, and how he was raised from the dead—all on our behalf. In this, a bright ray of hope pierces through the grief that is felt at a funeral, and the promises of forgiveness and life that Jesus won on the cross are spoken to all, declared true for the person who has died and is now with their Lord in glory.
Indeed, even in the gloom of our mortality, the gospel preaches to us that because of Jesus’ death, Christian death is now a portal to eternal life. That is the truth that frames our celebration of All Saints Day today. In our Revelation text that we just heard, this really marks the perfect occasion for us to reflect on life and death in light of God’s saints who have gone before us.
Now, when you think of the saints, who first comes to mind? Maybe it’s the apostles and the prophets, those holy men of old that God selected to bring his word to the people, even in the face of resistance, persecution, and rejection. Or maybe you think of the stories of the martyrs, decapitated, fed to lions, burned at the stake, and other horrific fates—all on account of their faith—whose blood still preaches the gospel even from the ground. Or maybe you think of those dearly beloved Christians whom we have known in our lives: parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, or even children, who, like the prophets, the apostles, and the martyrs, have confessed the faith and now have been called from this veil of tears into eternal rest.
It’s all of these, along with all of the faithful, that St. John sees in this vision. He records this: “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!’”
If it wasn’t clear, the elder guiding John through his vision tells him exactly who these people are. He says, “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.” So these are the ones who, like Abraham, believed God. He counted it to them as righteousness for the sake of his Son. Because the blood of Christ redeemed them. The promises given to them in their time on this earth have now been fully realized in the presence of God, their heavenly Father, who delights to call them his children with whom he is well pleased.
And that sin that should have rightly condemned them to an eternity in hell—that black stain that nothing can get rid of and clean—well, it was erased. It was washed away by the only thing that could have ever gotten rid of it: something that we could not have purchased or created on our own, the blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And now those saints, by virtue of Christ and his blood, wear gleaming white robes in the presence of God, perfectly restored as his children.
Because of this crucifixion of our Lord in their place, he has transformed their deaths from one of damnation that was deserved into one of eternal life. He has taken away that sharp sting of death and has instead guaranteed his beloved saints a painless paradise in his presence. This is where those saints dwell even now, resting victorious in the presence of God.
Yet in all of this, we’re still missing a group of saints. It’s those of us still on earth. Because we too have been given all the promises of salvation, forgiveness, and life from God. We are waiting for our Lord to call us to himself in his time so that they might be fully realized, even though we do have them now in part. We too, who have been redeemed and are washed and claimed by God in our baptisms, have this to look forward to, just as the saints of old did.
Indeed, the names of all of the elect, including your name, have been written in the book of life since before the foundation of the world. Yet, in our time on earth, we do not yet see the fullness of this salvation that we know is promised to us. We have a sure hope in these promises that are guaranteed to us, but for now we wait. And we know that as we wait, there’s affliction. The world, the devil, and our own sinful flesh make sure there’s plenty of that to go around.
These do not want us to love God or to hear His word and to love the promises that He has given to us. In our gospel reading today, Jesus teaches us concerning this life of tribulation and our suffering. Because in the Beatitudes, Jesus describes our earthly life in the form of blessings: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, and those who are treated evilly for the sake of Christ’s name.
These are the believers whose lives reflect the suffering and the longing for the righteousness of God. Blessed are you, dear Christians, because of it. On this side of glory, we as Christians live out that first half of each of the Beatitudes. In our struggle as both saint and sinner, our daily battle against the sinful flesh, we confess with the apostle John that we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. We know that the great promise of eternal life and of our victorious rest for God’s children—those promises are for us, even though we have not yet seen it fully.
Amen. St. John once again speaks to us in our epistle reading, where he says, “Everyone who thus hopes in Jesus purifies himself as he is pure.” Even in our struggles in this veil of tears, this world of affliction which doesn’t want to give anyone a break, even amidst all of this, we are being purified for Christ’s sake. In your robe too, it’s washed white in the blood of the Lamb, and you are given the sure hope of perfect, everlasting life in the presence of God, along with all the saints who have already seen it.
It’s in that eternal life where we will live out the second half of each of the Beatitudes. We, with the saints before us, will receive comfort, righteousness, mercy, and a great reward in heaven—all of this in full and in abundance. The saints in heaven have come out of their tribulation. As Saint John in his Revelation records, “They are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night in his temple. He who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more. 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.”
Now that is some of the sweetest gospel. Know for certain that it is for you, that there is nothing that can take it away from you, because our hope and the promises of God are sure. Truly salvation does belong to our God and to the Lamb, and he gives it to us out of love.
So today we celebrate All Saints Day, pondering the lives and the deaths of God’s beloved saints. We also acknowledge that the promise of eternal life that we have is strange to a dying world. For many of us, as we contemplate these things, specific individuals—loved ones that we have known—come to mind. We grieve still. There is sadness.
On one hand, this is good. When someone we love dies, we have to acknowledge that death isn’t natural in a way. It’s not how God created the world to be. Death is an intruder. It is an enemy. In God’s perfect world, it does not belong. It’s that perfect world we look forward to having restored for us.
The world would have you despair endlessly when someone dies. It would have you believe that there’s nothing after death and that really all you can do is try and pick up the pieces and live out the rest of your little life. But we who have heard the words of our Lord know differently. It is good; it is healthy for us to mourn when someone dies. But we do not mourn as those who have no hope. Rather, when we cry, our cries echo off the walls of Christ’s empty tomb.
Because even in death, there is now life in the resurrected Lord who says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who believes in me shall never die.” So at a Christian funeral, it may be that the law stares you in the face and grates upon your heart. But even so, the gospel comes to you with the sweet assurance of promises that are far better than any affliction the world can bring to us, even death itself.
God, in his mercy, has told us what happens to all the saints who go before us and what we look forward to ourselves. He has claimed them as his own, and every promise that He ever made to them in their baptisms, He has fulfilled perfectly. So even through our tears, we can rejoice, knowing that God is not a God of the dead, but He’s a God of the living.
In this way, All Saints’ Day is a day of great reassurance and triumph, even joy. Because what is joy if not happiness produced by hope and tempered by suffering? The words and the promises of God declare clearly that all who believe and are baptized will be saved, and that those who die in Christ depart in peace to be in the presence of God for all eternity. The same promises that have been proven true for the saints who are with God are also for you and for me, even as we continue to fight the good fight of faith on this side of eternal glory.
God will continue to help you, to strengthen you. And one day, when your Lord calls you home, you will see every one of those promises fulfilled completely. You will suffer no more affliction, and your voice will join the innumerable chorus of saints whose timeless joy flows out in endless songs of praise to the Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of the world.
That very same Lord will finally drape over you that richly white, dazzling robe that was washed in his blood. And he will wipe away every tear from your eyes.
In the name of Jesus, amen.