All Saints Sunday
04 November 2018
Beloved. All Saints’ Sunday is the day that we remember especially those Christians who have died in the faith and whose souls are now in heaven, who as the Spirit says, rest from their labors and [whose] works follow them [Rev. 14.13]. When Christians are buried, they are not gone and forgotten. Instead, their souls live in heaven in joy and bliss before the throne of Christ. Their bodies rest in the ground and decay, awaiting the resurrection on the Last Day, the day that Jesus comes in triumph and glory and who will reunite the soul which has been in heaven since death with the resurrected and glorified body, fit for an eternity in heaven.
Today, we especially tend remember those Christians dear to us—family members, members of the congregation, those Christians the Lord used to have a big impact on our lives spiritually. Perhaps we also remember the “big names”—the OT prophets, the apostles, those the Lord especially used in His Church like St. Athanasius or St. Augustine. But today is All Saints’ Sunday. We remember that the saints—all those who went before us and died in the faith—are as the Apostle writes [Hb. 12.1]: a great cloud of witnesses. This is a huge number of saints—and what is most glorious is that because they are not “dead and gone”; but that their souls live in heaven means that they are one Church with us. Part of the Church is here on earth—struggling against sin, suffering, etc.; and part of the Church is in heaven—in triumph and glory because God brought them to faith and faithfully kept and preserved them in that faith in Jesus and His saving work until their dying breath and then brought their souls to Him in heaven. This is what we confess in the Creed about the Church that she is the communion of saints.
We take great comfort in this doctrine and especially today on this All Saints Sunday because this doctrine points us to our Lord and His mercy. Because the souls of the saints are in heaven, that means that God has shown them mercy and has forgiven them their sin. Certainly He will do the same with us. Because the souls of the saints are in heaven, that means that God was faithful in His promise to work through His holy word and sacraments to create and preserve faith. Certainly He will do the same with us. And because the saints in heaven are one Church with us Christians here on earth, we can be assured of their prayers for us, as our Lutheran Confessions [Ap. XXI.9] point out: we grant that in heaven [the saints] pray for the church in general, just as they prayed for the entire church while living.
What great need we have for their prayers! Our Gospel today is the Beatitudes from the first recorded words of Jesus’ public preaching. And what does He do in these words? He describes His dear Christians in words that do not sound very flattering to most. He seemingly describes our condition as rather unenviable: poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungering and thirsting, persecuted; He describes the characteristics of Christians as those that usually don’t make for “success” in the world: merciful, pure, peacemakers. And yet, in spite of the seemingly unenviable condition and characteristics of His dear Christians, Jesus calls us “Blessed.” And so All Saints’ Sunday today is a great encouragement and strengthening for us. These poor, mourning, meek, persecuted Christians were indeed “blessed” during their earthly life and now their blessedness is visible and confirmed beyond any shadow of a doubt in heaven’s glories.
As we briefly examine the first Beatitude, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, we will see that the Christian is a spiritual beggar—and in fact it is precisely that that makes us Christians and why we are blessed.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. What is this “blessedness” that Jesus talks of here? First off, it is God’s declaration on us. He calls/ declares us “blessed”. This spiritual poverty is not something that the world considers “good” to have. Any sort of poverty is something to be avoided in the world’s eyes. Why would someone want to be poor when riches can be had and striven for? The usual way of thinking would say/ the declaration of the world would be: The poor in spirit are not blessed. But here we come to the difference between heavenly/ divine wisdom and worldly/ carnal wisdom. To the world, everything is judged by the outward/ by what is obvious to the eyes and senses. But heavenly wisdom judges things differently. It judges by the hidden/ what is in the heart.
So here, by Jesus declaring the poor in spirit as Blessed, He is undoing/ contradicting the world’s verdict and the world’s way of thinking. He is directing us to the true divine reality that because of God’s declaration the Christian, the poor in spirit, truly is blessed. We are directed to what God has in store for the Christian—what the saints in heaven are now enjoying; we are directed toward the blessings of God that we will one day enjoy and which we are already now enjoying. So by looking at God’s declaration of us as Blessed we then have great joy, great spiritual exaltation because of God’s gifts and blessings, His mercies and graces toward us. We may not see them; we may not feel them but we are blessed by the Lord; we are the object of His love—just as the saints before us were. Yes, they struggled against sin; yes, the felt the attacks of the devil and his allies. But they were accepted by our merciful God and they received His divine approval. As they were declared blessed by God, Blessed are the poor in spirit, so too are we!
The vital thing to remember is that it is not because we are poor in spirit to begin with that God then sees how “good” we are and then declares us blessed. Instead, the fact that we are blessed by God is seen in that we are poor in spirit. In other words, where God has come to us and by His Holy Spirit worked faith in Jesus in our hearts, we then, as a result, are poor in spirit.
What is the opposite of being the poor in spirit? –Being rich in spirit! And what is that? That is spiritual pride and being spiritually self-sufficient. The spiritually rich think they have on their own enough good works to please God and enter heaven; the spiritually rich think that they, yes, may have done some bad things, but not all that bad—certainly not bad enough to keep them out of heaven; the spiritually rich ultimately think that they really don’t need a Savior from sin.
So the Christian is poor in spirit. Why? Because through His holy Law the Lord has brought the Christian to a recognition of his/her sin; by His holy law He has crushed us and any notion of our supposed holiness and righteousness. We, dear Christian, do not feel spiritual richness in us—only our sin; we feel only our inability to do the will of God, to live a life without sin. We are painfully aware of our sin and moral deficiencies. Much like a beggar cries out for mercy/ money, so too does the Christian, poor in spirit, cry out with St. Paul [Rm. 7.19, 24]: For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice….O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? By recognizing the true reality of our sin, we are truly poor in spirit. We see that we have nothing to offer God—no good works—to appease Him, to enter heaven, to gain His favor. So instead of being one who is spiritually rich—thinking we have something to offer God—we are poor in spirit; we become spiritual beggars—begging from God, asking Him for His mercy, for His forgiveness, for His grace. And what is this begging? It is faith! Faith is a bold thing; it goes to the Lord, like a beggar, and asks Him for the riches of Jesus—the forgiveness of sin, His perfect holiness, life, salvation. And like the beggar reaches out and grabs the coin of the rich man, so faith reaches out and grabs/ receives the gifts that Jesus wants to give us: forgiveness of sin, life, salvation, peace, joy. That’s why Jesus says that the poor in spirit are blessed–because they receive spiritual richness and abundance from Him! The spiritually rich do not think they need the riches of Christ and therefore how can Jesus give these riches to them? But the poor in spirit, the spiritual beggar, crushed by the Law, crushed by a knowledge of sin, eagerly grasps all that Jesus gives and offers.
Again, who is the one that God declares blessed? The one who possesses this poverty of spirit, that God Himself has worked in us by His Holy Spirit at work in the law. The point here is this: Do you feel your sin? Is your conscience condemning you? Don’t try to explain away your sin. Don’t try to justify your sin. Don’t try to minimize your sin. Instead, confess your sin. Become a spiritual beggar and go to the Lord in humble sorrow over that sin and in faith, trusting in Him, receive His forgiveness that He gives you fully and freely. Run to holy absolution and hear and receive that forgiveness Jesus speaks to you through the pastor; run to the Holy Supper and their receive that forgiveness as you eat that body that was cursed with your sin and drink that blood that was poured out for your forgiveness. Being poor in spirit you, in that poverty, in faith receive the riches that Jesus is here giving you. As you do that, it is clear that you are one truly blessed by God because you, in Spirit-worked faith, are receiving all His spiritual riches. How blessed we spiritual beggars, poor in spirit, are.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Notice that this is present tense—already now: we Christians already now have the kingdom of heaven. We spiritual beggars who make no claims of righteousness for ourselves/ we who are the poor in spirit, God’s plan of salvation is already at work in us; we already are enjoying the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is all of God’s gifts that we are enjoying here on earth in His Church and which we will continue to enjoy eternally in heaven. Jesus very clearly says [Jn. 3.36]: He who believes in the Son has everlasting life. And St. John picks up that thought as he writes [1 Jn 5.13]: These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. Notice—present tense; the moment we come to faith in Jesus, we have eternal life. That’s why when a Christian dies, the soul goes right away to heaven—the life the Lord began here continues; death does not interrupt/ stop it. Already now, by faith, the kingdom of heaven is ours. That’s because Jesus is ruling in the heart of His dear Christian. When He enters the heart, He makes us spiritual beggars rich; He gives us the gifts of His kingdom: pardon, peace, comfort, joy, a life of holiness, the hope of heaven.
That’s why Jesus here in the beatitudes declares us Christians, the poor in spirit, blessed: we, despairing of our own righteousness, receive in Spirit worked faith Jesus and all His gifts and riches. Yes, it may not look like it to the world as we struggle with sin and as we suffer various trials and hardships. But already now, we, dear Christian, are already enjoying the kingdom of heaven. That’s what the saints in heaven did during their lives on earth; now they are enjoying it in a much fuller way; and come the Last Day, they and we and all Christians after us will enjoy it to the full in both soul and body. Because it may not look like it now/ because we may not feel it now, that’s why Jesus declares it. It is the reality—we spiritual beggars enjoy even now the kingdom of heaven and we will eternally.
Just like the saints of heaven during their earthly life, let us never stop being the poor in spirit, spiritual beggars. That is the heart and core of our Christianity. Because we are Christians now, we beg for Jesus’ righteousness, forgiveness and life. We spiritual beggars truly are blessed— the kingdom of heaven is ours. INJ Amen.