Sunday, November 2, 2014
All Saints Sunday
Please pray with me: may the words
from my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord,
our rock and our redeemer: AMEN!
As I was preparing for this week’s
sermon, I took some time to listen to each of the texts. The problem is that
they all spoke to me. No wonder, because it is All Saints Day. This is the day
that we remember all those who have died in the church this past year. So each one of these
readings spoke to me in a very different way. In our Bible Study this past week
we dug deep into these Beatitudes and really got to the heart of what God was
saying. Today, I feel a sense of looking at the bigger picture.
Our first reading from Revelation
goes to the heart of this day. In this letter to the churches we see the vision
of this “great multitude” that is singing about salvation and that it belongs
to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the lamb.” These are words of
encouragement, throughout these verses. They are encouragement to those who
lost loved ones, to those who might be facing their own mortality, and to those
who are living lives of gratitude and thanksgiving to a God who sent Jesus, the
lamb, to take away our sins. These are most definitely words that can sustain
us at times of sadness and grief.
Our psalm poses another sense of
encouragement. It is not for those who lost loved ones, but it serves those who
struggle. “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall ever be in my
mouth.” No matter the situation, our psalm encourages us to reach out to God,
call out to God, and even cry out to God, in good times as well as times of
struggle; for in both of these readings, Revelation and Psalm 34, those who
hunger or lack will be satisfied when the Kingdom of God comes. There will be
no hunger and there will be no lacking for God will provide all that we need.
Our second reading in First John
brings things a little closer to home. In this letter we hear that because of
the gifts that God has given us, we “should be called the Children of God.” I
have always found that title to be humbling and such a gift. It means that we
know to whom we belong. We do not belong to the world but we belong to the one
who created us; and through our baptism, we have been claimed by the God who
created the heavens and earth, and all that is within them. It means that we
are also part of a bigger picture. It is not just you OR me in this world, but
it is all of us.
And here we are at the Beatitudes.
This where Jesus helps to show us that this day is not just about loss through
death. The Theologian David Lose who is the President of The Lutheran Seminary
at Phildelphia said that “loss” comes from “leave-takings from jobs, changing
jobs, struggles with illnesses, the exhaustion of caring for loved ones, to name
a few. There are many struggles that we all go through and at any given time we
suffer or struggle.
These are just a few of life’s
situations that can knock us down, strain our faith, or cause us to wrestle
with God. All these things that I mentioned and more can cause us to feel
tired, exhausted and it can shake our faith to its very core. We can end up
feeling that there is so much unfairness that we just can’t catch a break! We
may even think that because we have fallen short because of our actions or inaction
that we might not even matter to God.
It is at this time when these
Beatitudes can mean so much to us. Jesus, the Son of God, is speaking about
blessings. His words are “Blessed are…” For the English scholar those are all
in the present tense. That means that as soon as it is said the blessing has
happened. These blessings are immediate and they are everlasting. This second
part of all our Beatitudes also tells the people who are blessed what is going
to happen when their time comes to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. All these
beatitudes are something that we can all hold onto, because Jesus is telling us
the promises of God’s blessings. As children of God these promises are made to
us and we can find comfort in the words, the compassion, and mercy that God has
delivered and gifted to us through Jesus Christ, God’s only Son.
The last of the Beatitudes is a
truth that can knock us for a loop. With all the promises of being comforted,
being shown mercy, and so much more; we hear the words of Jesus to say “blessed
are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil
against you falsely on my account.” Jesus tells us that it will not be an easy
road. All this comfort, peace, and mercy being shown is because it means we are
going to need it as disciples of Jesus Christ.
We know the brokenness of the world.
We know that society wants to put ourselves before others, put our needs over
everyone else’s. We are bombarded with ads telling us how to spend our money,
who to spend it on, who should be our friends, who we should cast out, believe
this or that, the way we should think…let’s face it society is competing for
every aspect of our lives and when we give in to society rather than seeking
God’s guidance or reading scripture to help us decide what is important that is
when we can also experience loss…loss of ourselves and loss of who God calls us
to be.
But that loss is not permanent
because there is always the place for us to come back and feel that sense of
connection, that sense of being reclaimed and that is here at the Lord’s Table.
We come to this table to celebrate what God has done for us; claimed us as
God’s own child and forgave us for the mistakes that we make in our lives.
Through the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ we have been promised the
gift of forgiveness and God mercy.
It is at this table where the
sacrifice of God’s only Son, Jesus Christ, was for you and for me so that
nothing would stand in the way of God’s love for us, not even death. It is on
this beautiful morning when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ where
God proves to us the promise of everlasting life. Where God proves to us that
there will be a time where there will be no more hunger or lacking…AND that
those tears of weeping will be dried up because we will all be together again
in the kingdom of Heaven.
SO today, as we remember those whom
we have lost, we also, hold onto God’s Words of encouragement where there will
be no more hunger, there will be peace, comfort and mercy, and we WILL see the
face of God, together: AMEN!
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