November 4, 2012 at Calvary Evangelical Lutheran
Church – Mechanicsburg, PA
“Beloved,
we are God's children now; 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.
And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure.”
Great words of promise are spoken
to us, as we celebrate the Festival of All Saints on this morning. The Apostle
says: “We will be like God, for we will
see Him as He is.” What a promise that is! It is a miraculous thing,
indeed, that we poor, miserable sinners will actually be like God. We truly will
be like God, not falsely as the serpent in the Garden promised in order to deceive
the Woman to take and eat the forbidden fruit. We will be changed, made by God
to be like Him.
The significance of the Festival
of All Saints is rooted in that promise. We remember those who have gone before
us in the faith, the saints in heaven above. They were like us, but now they have
been made more like God. They see Him face to face, seeing God as He is, as
John recorded for us in his vision: “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!’”
Today we focus on the change in
fate and status brought to people through Jesus’ death and resurrection—the
great act of love, grace, and mercy performed for us. Through Jesus’ actions
and having their merits applied to us through Holy Baptism, the preached Word,
Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper, we have been made God’s children. This is
the love that we have been shown: “See
what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children
of God; and so we are.” The Eternal Father calls us His children and
considers us just like His eternal Son Jesus, granting blessing upon blessing
to us and to all who have gone before us in the faith.
The Scripture readings for this
day are full of statements of blessing. Already, we reviewed the promised
blessing that John wrote of in his letter to the Church. John’s vision spoke of
an eternal blessing that people receive: “Therefore
they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple;
and He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence. They shall
hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; 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.” And the Gospel Reading for this morning spoke all
about blessing.
The teaching of Jesus recorded
by Matthew that you heard is called The Beatitudes, because they speak all
about blessing. Jesus says: “Blessed are”
all sorts of categories of people. What’s interesting about all those
statements of blessing that Jesus makes is that none of them would rightly apply
to us, certainly not at all times and places. Think about all the people He
calls “blessed”: the poor in spirit,
those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the
merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for
righteousness’ sake. These people Jesus calls blessed. But trying to strive to
meet such categories and thus receive blessedness will prove vain.
How well do we fit those
categories—poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungering and thirsting for
righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemaking, persecuted for
righteousness’ sake? Consider your own lives, and you will recognize that you don’t
fit those categories well at all. Certainly, all of us can recognize a time when
we do. But we know just as well how we are the opposite of them. We are proud.
We revel and find joy in the things of the world. We desire the things of this
world and are quick to find pleasure in sinful deeds. Extracting revenge is our
typical reaction to being wronged. Our hearts are full of lust, greed, and scheming.
Arguing and brawling become our standard practice and ways of entertaining
ourselves. Faced with opposition from others, we are quick to cave and not
stand up against them. In fact, we often join in their attacks.
Compared to Jesus’ stated
categories of blessedness, we fall woefully short. Based on what we are and
have done, we deserve to be called cursed, not blessed. We receive such
condemnation when the Lord looks
upon on our thoughts, words, and deeds that run contrary to His will. Every
time that we are the opposite of these categories of blessedness, we fall into
the areas of curse and condemnation. The Lord’s
words of Law—words of judgment just as clear as the words of promise and
blessing we heard today—are spoken against us.
But our fate is changed. We are
changed. The divine promise is given to us: “See
what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children
of God; and so we are…. 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.” We are God’s children. We will be like Him. Since
that is so, then we will be blessed by the Lord,
the source of all blessing. Then those categories of blessedness will describe
us well, as we are made to meet them. Note that well: the categories of
blessedness do not describe us because we have striven to conform to the Lord’s image and character and achieved
that; rather, His work done in us makes us that way.
All those categories of
blessedness that Jesus spoke about in our Gospel Reading apply to Him. In the
Sermon on the Mount Jesus gives us a depiction of Himself. He is saying to us: “I
am the Blessed One. But not only am I the Blessed One, I am the One who brings
blessing to those under divine curse.” Jesus’ words direct us away from
ourselves and focus on Him. Can you make yourself poor in spirit, mournful,
meek, hungry for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers? Can you
change who you are by nature? Jesus says, “Think again.” The leopard can’t change
its spots. No matter how much we try, how much effort we put into it, we will
never meet those descriptions of blessedness that Jesus outlines for us. Not
even the saints who have gone before us were able to.
And yet, those descriptions of
blessedness apply to us. We are made to meet them. That is what undergirds the
statements that John made to all of Jesus’ people, even us: “We know that when He appears we shall be
like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.” The blessing is not acquired
by us, not taken by our force or effort. No, it is given to us by the Blessed
One Himself. Remember the focus of this day: the change in status that Jesus
gives through His death and resurrection. We have been made God’s children,
made like Jesus, by having His merits applied to us through Holy Baptism, the
preached Word, Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper. The central thought of this
day is that Jesus, the Blessed One, has made us blessed by connecting us to Him
and applying Himself to us.
This is what the Lord has made known to us. Remember the
vision of heaven given to John. Recall that great depiction of innumerable
people in white worshiping the Lamb of God before the throne of heaven. In that
vision, there was an explanation of why that crowd was there, what got them to
that point. It really had nothing to do with what that group of people achieved
or accomplished, but what was made to be theirs.
When John was asked about the
identity of that group of thousands, he was told exactly who and what they
were: “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. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him
day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will shelter them
with His presence.” The multitude had this status because of what had been
done for them and given to them. They were connected to Jesus’ death and
resurrection; His work granted them access to the eternal blessings of
Paradise.
So it is for us: we have washed
our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. It’s what happened to
us as we were brought to the holy font. That’s what we saw happen during the
last several months, with the baptisms of Holland and Sarah Bede. It happens
repeatedly as we are absolved and as we partake of the blood of the Lamb in His
heavenly banquet here on earth. This is what numbers us among the countless
thousands who have gone before us in the faith. It is what makes them and us the
children of God. Their story is the same as ours.
We are blessed, since have been
connected to Jesus’ death and resurrection, knit together into one holy
communion, incorporated into His body, the Church. Credited with what Jesus has
done for us, we fit the categories that Jesus described in the Beatitudes. His
actions make us so. It’s what John was talking about, both in his vision of
paradise and his letter to the Church. It’s a matter of reality now and a
reality yet to come: “Beloved, we are
God's children now; 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.” That
is what we will be, when we are resurrected and stand among the countless
number of those arrayed in white who eternally stand in the presence of God’s
throne. May the Blessed One who granted this privilege to those who went before
us fulfill the same promise made to us.
+ In the Name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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