Rev. 14:13
November 4, 2018
All Saints’ Sunday
Dear Saints of Our Savior~
If the church took its cues from culture, then this morning’s sermon would be all about this week’s elections—or about last week’s cutest Halloween costumes—or about how early the sun will set this afternoon—or how Thanksgiving is less than three weeks away. But the church doesn’t take her cues from culture. In fact, on this first Sunday of November we do something completely counter-cultural. As the world around us slips into a chilly and dreary darkness, our attention turns to light and life—to the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Welcome to All Saints’ Sunday!
All Saints’ Sunday turns everything on its head. Nothing is as it seems. The last are first, and the first are last. Those whose lives seem to be cursed—well, it turns out that they are the blessed ones. The poor in spirit—the meek, the mourning, the hungry, the
But today’s text from Revelation 14 adds a surprising and shocking beatitude that no one would have ever imagined: Blessed are. . . the dead. Here’s the entire verse (our choir sang it beautifully a few minutes ago): And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.”
Blessed are the dead? That sounds so strange—especially when one of the main themes of the Scriptures is that death is the just wages for sin (Rom. 6:23). Death is what our sins have earned for us. Death is the outcome and result of sin. From that perspective, death is anything but blessed. But consider also this sentence from Psalm 116: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. When God sees the death of His saints—His holy ones, justified in Jesus—He views it as a precious thing—a blessed event. I think it’s safe to say that none of us would naturally attach those adjectives to that noun. At the gut level, none of us would think of death as “precious” or “blessed.”
We live in a death-denying culture which spends big bucks to defy the aging process—which is really just the slow, steady drumbeat of dying. Halloween is about as close to death as we like to get. I noticed how several north shore neighbors turned their front yards into scary cemetery scenes, featuring coffins, and skeletons and tombstones. If nothing else, it serves as a reminder that pretend death is a lot easier to deal with than the real thing. Everybody knows those skeletons are made of plastic, the coffins are empty, and the tombstones are Styrofoam. It’s pretend, play death. But as for the real thing—No thanks. We don’t want anything to do with that.
The whole funeral industry seems hell-bent on denying death. If there’s a burial at the cemetery, all the dirt from the grave gets covered up with green astroturf. The actual burial is usually done by hired workers after the mourners have all left the scene. We exchange a lot of sentimental sweetness about how our loved ones are in “a better place,” or how they’re in heaven playing golf, or cheering on the Badgers, or doing whatever it is they loved to do. Or we hear how they live on in our memories, or in the stories we tell about them.
Nobody except an occasional clergyman ever dares to state the truth with clarity and conviction: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. The truth is that these days you have to go to a lot of funerals before you actually hear the sure and certain hope that we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. And we believe that for the sheer and simple reason that Jesus Christ died and rose bodily from the dead—demonstrating beyond doubt that He has defeated death decisively, once and for all.
Outside of Christianity, nobody has this good news about resurrection life. Outside of Christianity—outside of Christ—death is never blessed or precious. The followers of Jesus have a monopoly on this matter of death and resurrection. Because Jesus is the only one—the only one to have died and then risen from the dead. Moses and Abraham died; but they didn’t rise. Buddha died; but he didn’t rise. Mohammed died; but he didn’t rise. Jesus was crucified, died and was buried, and on the third day rose again from the dead.
It’s because of Jesus’ death and resurrection that we can use words like “precious” and “blessed” to describe our own death, and the deaths of all baptized believers. Blessed are those who die in the Lord. Not just any death, but those who die in the Lord—those who have been united with Christ through the waters of Holy Baptism. Blessed are you, dear baptized believer, trusting in the promise of life everlasting in Jesus’ name.
Your death (yes, it’s coming), your death is also blessed and precious to the Lord—not because of you, but because of your Savior, Jesus. And not because of your works. Your good works matter, to be sure. But your good works “follow” you in death; they don’t “precede” you. That’s what we heard last week—that you are saved by grace, through faith in Christ, as a gift. They say you can’t take it with you; and that’s true concerning money and possessions. But your good works are a different story. Your good works will indeed follow behind you; but you don’t lead with them. Nothing you do can make your death blessed or precious. Jesus handles that.
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. In these last days, in the wake of Jesus’ death and resurrection, our Lord has transformed the wages of sin into a moment of profound blessing for all who trust in Him. Today we not only remember “all the saints who from their labors rest,” but we remember in particular those from whom we have only recently parted company. We will name some of them in a few minutes. The wounds and the pain of that parting still hurt and sting. We feebly struggle; they in glory shine. In them, all of our Lord’s beatitudes have been fulfilled. Their poverty of spirit has been answered by the riches of the kingdom of heaven, and their mourning has turned to joy in the comfort of the Christ. Their departures from this world were made precious and blessed—their robes were washed white in the blood of the Lamb.
So, what’s it going to be like in heaven, with the Lord? What’s it like for those who are already there? Put simply, it will be a “blessed” reunion. Beyond that, we don’t have a lot of details. We do have glimpses, and snapshots and parables that depict the kingdom of heaven as more about a party and fine food and drink than about sitting around strumming harps on the clouds.
One thing we know for sure is that the population of heaven will be more diverse than what we see with our eyes gathered here this morning. St. John beheld “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.”
Something else we know for sure about eternal life is that the main activity will be worship—an unending liturgy to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. And that liturgy won’t differ all that much from what we sang earlier this morning in This Is the Feast of Victory: Blessing, honor, glory, and might be to God and the Lamb forever. Worthy is Christ, the Lamb who was slain. It’s going on right now in heaven. And although we can’t see it with our eyes or hear it with our ears, yet we confess that even this humble service is joined and tended and augmented by angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven. A great cloud of witnesses is swelling our humble hymns of praise.
God has wiped every tear from their eyes; and He will also do it for you. Blessed are you. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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