Saints By Faith
Text: 1 John 3:1-3, Matt. 5:1-12
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It’s critical to all that we teach and do here in the Church, but it is perhaps the most difficult thing to truly internalize and make our own. It is faith. We’ve spent a lot of time these last few weeks of the Church year talking about faith. On the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels we heard about an invisible part of creation, the angels, whom God created to protect us, and we thanked Him for surrounding us with them, even though we cannot see them. We heard about the importance of continuing in prayer, how faith clings to God’s promises and so raises its prayers to the heavenly Father without losing heart. Last week we celebrated the Reformation and its emphasis on God’s goodwill and favor received through faith alone. Soon we’ll enter the end of the Church year and its focus on how we look to the end of time and Jesus’ return, which is known to us only by faith. And often those unseen, yet believed things aren’t always difficult for people to receive. All sorts of people, even non-Christians and unbelievers, believe in angels in some way or another. Many people believe in the end of the world, with only belief holding up their various theories, even if it’s not in the way Scripture describes it. But when faith becomes most difficult, when it’s the hardest to grasp, is when it is applied to people personally; when it is something that touches, or even seizes our own lives.
We hear this in the Beatitudes. In several of these words of blessing, the people undergoing them—including you when you’re in these statuses—would not say that they felt particularly blessed. Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…Blessed are those who mourn…Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake…Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.” They wouldn’t say that they felt like theirs is the kingdom of heaven, or that they’re comforted, or that they will be satisfied, or that their reward is great. And yet our Lord, who tells no lies, says that they are blessed, and that they are blessed in these specific ways. The accounting of the world would not say so. Their own—your own—bodies and hearts and minds might disagree with pain and tears. Yet Jesus never deceives us. He says that you who find yourselves in these states are blessed, now, in the present tense, even if you cannot see or feel it. It is known only to faith.
But this is the core of our religion: faith. Faith looks at a man, the Son of Man, on a cross and faith says, “That is the eternal Son of God.” Faith looks at an old man and woman called out of ancient Ur to wander until they reach the Promised Land and faith says, “There are the mother and father of nations, my father Abraham and my mother Sarah, by faith.” Faith looks at your own life, so scarred and stained by sin—sins you commit and sins committed against you—and faith says, “But I am forgiven, I am purified, I am made whole.” Faith looks at someone dying, even someone who has died, and faith cries out, “They are alive in the Lord.”
Faith is hard. It teaches us when to listen to the Word and promises of God, and when to still the objections of our flesh, our worldly minds, our fallen hearts. Faith puts away the mockery of the world and the lies of the tempter, and it tunes our ears, our hearts, to hear God alone. And what does God tell us in those storms, when faith needs something to grip and hold tight to? “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.” When our wrongly focused nature demands to see in order to know, to experience now in order to trust, faith instead clings to the promises. “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.” And even when death seeks to shake our confidence, faith holds up the promise from the mouth of God Himself in heaven: “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!”
And our Lord, who walked this mortal world and knows its hardships and our weaknesses, does not give us the command to simply believe for no reason at all. Rather, He delights to create faith with His promises. He gives us tokens for our faith to cling to. So this All Saints’ Day, we celebrate the lives, both here and in the hereafter, of those who have gone before us in the faith. We get a glimpse, a token, of what they already enjoy. “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!’…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…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.”
Our Lord gives us this promise, a scene of blessing viewed by St. John and recorded for our benefit in the Book of Revelation, heard just hidden under the songs we sing in this very space, so that we would have a reason to believe, something to cling to, to know what we are waiting for. And while we wait, He gives us a place at His table with Him and with all the company of heaven, gathered around His altar, His throne, His body and blood. He grants us to sing the hymns of the faithful at rest, a distant triumph song barely stealing on the ear. He grants us to hear His promise here in His Word, to taste immortality, so that hope is kindled, faith is strengthened, fervent love for all the saints is increased. He grants us to know, with all the certainty in creation, that He makes good on what He says He’ll do for us. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and even though you may not see it with your eyes, even though what you will be has not yet appeared to your senses, faith knows it. Faith knows that what you will be is going to be revealed when your Lord comes. No matter your sin, no matter your sorrow, no matter your wounds, no matter what your fallen nature and flesh cry out, your God loves you. He forgives you. He blessed you in all the ways He has said: yours is the kingdom of God, you will receive mercy, you will be satisfied, your reward is great in heaven. You, His saint, His child, are blessed. In the name of Jesus, who makes us saints. Amen.
