Blessed to Rejoice

The Festival of All Saints

November 5, 2023

Matthew 5:1-12

 “Blessed to Rejoice”

There has been a curious thing here at church in one of our garden beds. Most of you likely have not noticed this because the particular garden bed I’m referring to is not near the main entrance to the church, but over on the side of the Fellowship Hall. It’s easily overlooked. For the last several weeks in this fall season – including just this past week – an Easter lily has been happily blooming away there for all to see. Easter may seem like a distant memory since it was more than half a year ago, but the message of Easter – the resurrection of Jesus and our own resurrection hope in him – is very much connected to this festival of All Saints. This is the flower that we most associate with the celebration of Jesus’ victory over death and the grave. From that lifeless, bare bulb, a glorious flower emerges. The Easter lily – even in this fall season when everything else seems to be dying back – serves as a reminder to us of the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come that we have in Christ Jesus together with all the saints. The message for this All Saints Sunday rises up out of Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel lesson, a portion of his Sermon on the Mount, and is entitled “Blessed to Rejoice.” May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake.

Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel are often known as “the Beatitudes.” That word “beatitude” comes from the Latin, beatus, meaning “happy.” And that is an accurate translation of the original word here in Matthew 5 (μακάριος), which can mean blessed, fortunate, or happy. That word “blessed” is used by Jesus over and over again here. Jesus calls blessed those whom the world would consider not blessed – the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are persecuted for Jesus’ sake. It all seems very counter-intuitive. But that’s how it is in Jesus’ upside-down kingdom. Things are not what they seem. There is more here than meets the eye.

Popular opinion is that saints are super-human believers who are far beyond your average, run-of-the-mill followers of Jesus. Their faith is so strong that in comparison, the average believer may feel puny and insignificant. We look at these figures etched in stained glass or carved in stone, and think: “That’s not me. I could never measure up to them.” But popular opinion can often be wrong, and it is in this instance. We likely do not consider ourselves saints, but regardless how we think of ourselves, what matters is what God thinks of us, and that is revealed in the Word of God, rather than our own feelings or emotions. It is as today’s Epistle lesson tells us: “Beloved, 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” (1 John 3:2). We are God’s children now – present tense. It is a reality in this moment. We are saints not because of how much we love God, but because of how much God has loved us and continues to love us. We are not saints through what we have done, but through what Christ has done for us; who lived, died and rose again from the dead that we might be his own, here in time and hereafter in eternity.

Through faith in Jesus, we are God’s people who are set apart for his own good purposes. Whatever good we are permitted to do in Jesus’ Name, the glory and praise goes to Christ, not to us. No saint is ever self-made or self-reliant. We are all connected to one another through our Baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection. The truth is that we need one another for mutual care, support and encouragement in our life together in the Body of Christ. That is why we come together weekly for worship around God’s gifts of Word and Sacrament. There is both a vertical as well as a horizontal dimension to this. Worship is vertical in that it concerns our relationship with God as it expresses that relationship through Word, prayer, song, sermon, and Sacrament. But worship is also horizontal in that it concerns our relationship with fellow believers. The truth is, we never worship alone, even if we are alone. This is what the creed calls “the communion of saints.” The communion of saints are all those believers worshiping with us here and now, whether in person or in spirit, as well as “with angels, archangels, and the whole company of heaven.” As with so many things in faith, it is both/and, not either/or. In that communion of saints, the whole church on earth and in heaven, we are blessed and so we rejoice.

Each Sunday, we confess the faith we share in the words of one of the three ecumenical creeds of the Church: the Nicene Creed (often used when Holy Communion is celebrated because of its emphasis on the Person and work of Jesus), the Apostles’ Creed (the earliest creed used for candidates preparing for Baptism), and the Athanasian Creed (used on Holy Trinity Sunday because of its emphasis on the Triune God). All speak of the union that exists in the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” between believers who are living and those who are dead. Whether living or dead, in Christ Jesus we are all the saints, not because of anything we have done, but because of what God in Christ has done for us. Washed clean in the waters of holy Baptism, we are marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit for life eternal. The Nicene Creed, which we will use later in this worship service, says this: “We acknowledge one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” That is the living hope we have received in Jesus, who loves us; who lived, died, and rose again for us, and who is coming again to make all things new.

For all who grieve the loss of a loved one, whether recent or long ago, here is hope. In our risen, reigning and returning Savior Jesus Christ, a glorious reunion awaits us. By the grace of God, we will be numbered among that great multitude which no one can number, whose robes have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. We receive a foretaste of this in the Lord’s Supper, where the veil is lifted and the church on earth is one with the church in heaven around the Body and Blood of Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Our reunion with those who have gone before us in the faith centers around that Lamb – him who is both Lamb and Shepherd – as the final verse in today’s Epistle tells us: “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” (Revelation 7:17). Being so blessed to have this certain hope in Jesus, we rejoice. Amen.