All
Saints
1
Jn 3:1-3
11/3/24
On
August 31 I conducted the funeral service and committal for Eloise Courser. I didn’t know Melissa. In fact, I had never met her in my life. Eloise was a member at Our Redeemer, Golconda. However, Our Redeemer is currently vacant. This
meant that when she died, there was no pastor to perform these last acts of
pastoral care.
The
leadership at Our Redeemer contacted Pastor Holden, the Circuit Visitor for our
area. Under different circumstances he
probably would have done the funeral.
However, he was already committed to speaking at an LWML event in the
area. So he sent out an email asking if
any pastor in the area could do the funeral.
I knew that I was the closest pastor, and that my schedule was free for
that Saturday, so I agreed to do it.
I
learned that Eloise had attended regularly at Our Redeemer until her health
prevented her from going to church. So I
preached a sermon based on the fact that I knew Eloise had been baptized, had
been taught the faith, and had received the Sacrament of the Altar. I spoke of
how she was a forgiven sinner – a saint – who is now with the Lord. And then I buried her body with the words:
“May God the Father who created this body; may God the Son who by his blood
redeemed this body; may God the Holy Spirit, who by Holy Baptism sanctified
this body to be His temple, keep these remains to the day of the resurrection
of all flesh.”
Today
we are observing the Feast of All Saints.
We are remembering the Christians who have died in the faith. Our thoughts naturally turn to the Christians
we have known – our family and friends.
But the example of Eloise reminds us that we are also giving thanks for
all of the Christians who are now with the Lord – even those we have not
known. We are rejoicing in the multitude
of the saints during the whole history of the Church who have died in Christ.
St.
John begins our text by saying, “See what kind of love the Father has
given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”
John extolls the remarkable love that God has revealed to us. We are now called the children of God. And this is not merely a matter of
words. Instead, it is one of fact. We really are God’s children.
This
is remarkable because there is nothing about us that deserves this status. Last week in the Gospel lesson we heard Jesus
say, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a
slave to sin.” We are certainly in
the sinning business. John says at the
beginning of this letter, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us.”
It
is not just that we sin. We are in fact
conceived and born as people who are fundamentally opposed to God. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to
you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of
God.” Our Lord said that we need to be
born again – born from above. And then he explained why as he said, “That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit.” The flesh – the fallen sinful nature – brings forth more of the
same. And as our natural abilities grow,
so does our sin.
In
our text, John refers twice to what has not yet appeared, and we will certainly
talk about that. But at the beginning of
the letter he uses the same Greek verb – here translated as “made manifest” –
in order to describe what God has done.
John says, “That which was from the beginning, which we have
heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon
and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life-- the life was made manifest, and we have seen it,
and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was
with the Father and was made manifest to us.”
What
did John and the apostles hear, and see, and touch? Jesus Christ, the Son of God. John tells us
in the Gospel that the Son of God – the Word – “became flesh and dwelt among
us.” The Father sent forth the Son into the world as he was conceived by the
Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.
The
Father sent Jesus as the answer to our sin and rebellion against God. When John the Baptist saw Jesus he declared,
“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus came to be the sacrifice for our sin on
the cross. John says in the previous
chapter of this letter, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours
only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
Sin
brings death. Jesus died on the cross to
provide forgiveness. Yet he had also come to defeat all that sin causes. He came to defeat death itself. God raised up
Jesus on the third day. On the evening of Easter he appeared in midst of his
disciples and said “Peace be with you,” as he showed them his hands and his
side.
Jesus
gives this forgiveness and life to us through the Spirit. You have been born again of water and the
Spirit in Holy Baptism. You have been
called to faith through God’s word. It
has been God’s doing for John says, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is
the Christ has been born of God.”
The
crucified and risen Lord promises that faith him in brings a life that
overcomes death. He said, “Truly, truly,
I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has
eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from
death to life.”
More than that our Lord promised
that this life continues beyond death itself.
He told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever
believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who
lives and believes in me shall never die.” Faith in Jesus Christ provides a life with
God that continues on beyond death.
In our text John says, “See what
kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children
of God; and so we are.” Those who were
baptized and believed in Jesus Christ were children of God during their
life. And they still are now. Their status had not changed. Their bodies may be buried in the ground, but
they are still the children of God. We know that while they may have
experienced physical death, their life with God continues.
St. Paul expressed it this way: “My
desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.”
Those who have died in the faith are now with Christ. Their life continues with
the Lord. We give thanks that following
the Spirit’s leading they were faithful unto death. They have finished the
course. They have kept the faith. And now they are with Christ which is far
better.
It is far better because they no
longer face the opposition of the world. John says in our text, “The reason
why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” The world rejected Jesus, and it continues to
do so to this day. Therefore the world
does not recognize us as the children of God.
Instead, quite the opposite, we are
the object of its hatred. Jesus said, “If
the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were
of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not
of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
The saints who have gone before us were chosen out of the world in faith. And
now in death they are no longer in the world. They no longer experience the
opposition that we do.
In the previous chapter John says, “My
little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But
if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous.” John’s words capture the
fact that our lives are lived in the continual battle against sin. However, for the saints who are with Christ
the struggle is over. No longer do they
know temptation. No longer does the old
Adam draw them into sin.
What a comfort to know that the
saints who have died before us are with Christ! Their life continues with the
Lord as they no longer know the world’s hatred, or temptation, or sickness and
pain. What a comfort to know that, for
us, death also means being with Christ.
Our life will continue with him, even as we are freed from the hardships
of this fallen world.
Yet on this All Saints’ day, we must
also remember that the present life of the saints who are with Christ is not God’s
final goal and purpose for them – or for us.
John says in our text, “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.”
John says that what we will be has
not yet appeared. We have not yet seen
the final outcome for all of God’s saints.
We haven’t because Jesus has not yet appeared. We are awaiting the
return of our risen and ascended Lord.
John says, “but we know that when he appears we shall be like him,
because we shall see him as he is.”
God created us as the unity of body
and soul. This is what he declared to be
very good. This is his ultimate intention for our life. Sin brought death that rends the two apart
and places the body in a grave. But the
Son of God became man and lived a bodily existence in order to redeem it. Jesus Christ did this through his
resurrection. St. Paul told the
Corinthians, “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the
resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall
all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits,
then at his coming those who belong to Christ.”
The Lord Jesus will return on the
Last Day, and when he appears we will be like him because he will raise and transform
us. Paul told the Philippians that “we await
a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to
be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to
subject all things to himself.”
Not only that, the Lord will also
renew creation so that it is very good once again. We will live with our
resurrected bodies that can never die in God’s good creation as he intended
it. We will live with the triune God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the way that God desired it.
On this All Saints’ day we thank God
for the knowledge that those who have died in Christ are with the Lord. They believed in Jesus Christ the crucified
and risen Lord. They were born again of water and the Spirit. They were children of God, and they still
are today. They are with Christ as
they no longer suffer the difficulties of this fallen world.
And at the same time we know that
God’s final saving goal is still to come.
“We know that when he appears we shall be like him,
because we shall see him as he is.”
He will raise and transform our bodies to be like his own. He will renew creation. And so we pray: “Come Lord Jesus!”
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