(The above picture was taken in the garden of THE STRAIGHTFORWARD PULPIT regular reader, Louise Kraft. One sees glimpses of genuine sainthood in her faith and life!)
Text: Revelation 21:1-6a
Theme: “The Saints:
Several Glimpses”
All Saints Day
November 1, 2015
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Denton, TX
Rev. Paul R. Dunklau
+In
the Name of Jesus+
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new
earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the
first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for
her husband. 3 And
I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now
among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God
himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their
eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or
mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
5 He
who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said,
“Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the
Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give
water without cost from the spring of the water of life.
The first
glimpse of the saints today is given in today’s Gospel from John 11. There you have Jesus, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Lazarus is dead. We tend to think of saints as dead
people. If that’s the definition and
there’s no more to it, then all we do on November 1st – All Saints
Day or All Hallows Day – is remember dead people. The occasion is, then, the church’s version
of Memorial Day.
Yet, there is
Jesus smack dab in the middle of John 11.
He – very much NOT dead in this reading – is also a saint. In fact, He, the Son of the living God is the perfect form of a saint and the ideal
exemplar of saintliness. There He is
with Martha close by. They are
weeping. Weeping, here, is the outward
manifestation of grief. Are you looking
for a modern-day saint? Look for
grief. “Blessed are those who mourn,”
said Jesus. Cross necklaces, lapel pins,
name tags, and perfect Sunday School attendance are all nice, but trust me on
this: look for the grief. And crocodile tears don’t count.
As we
observed, Lazarus was raised – and Jesus too!
There is more to sainthood than being dead. To the Sadducees who denied the resurrection
of the body, Jesus declared:
Have you not read what
was spoken to you by God: 'I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND
THE GOD OF JACOB '? He is not the God of the dead but of the living." When
the crowds heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.
A saint is a
holy one. The terms mean the same thing
– if a saint, then a holy one if a holy one, then a saint. A holy one, by definition, is someone without
sin. To be holy is to be without
sin. Well, unfortunately, that disqualifies
every one of us from sainthood. Left
to ourselves, we don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming a
saint. Personally, I find some relief in
this – but I’m weird that way!
So, at point
number one, a saint is a person without sin.
We don’t fit THAT definition.
But, at point number two there is a glimmer of hope. A holy one, or saint, is one who belongs to
the Lord. In the first meaning, we
observed a state of being: without
sin. In this second description, we note
a state of belonging! If holy, then it
belongs to the Lord! If not holy, then
not the Lord’s. We all it the holy
church because it’s the Lord’s church.
We call it the holy ministry because it’s the Lord’s ministry. As R. J. Neuhaus so aptly pointed out, “Every
cause of ours that is good is the Lord’s before it is ours.”
There were a
whole bunch of sinners at the church in Ephesus, yet the apostle greeted them
with these words in Ephesians 1:1: “
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints in Ephesus,
and the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace
and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
They were
called “saints” not because they had superior morals, or voted the right way,
or supported the approved radio talk shows, think tanks, and charities. They were saints for the very simple reason
that they belonged to the Lord. They
were bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ that cleansed them, the
Ephesians, from all sin. That’s the
Gospel, my friends. Whether you live or
you die, you are the Lord’s. By
extension, you are a holy one, a saint. To use recovery language, the Lord did for
them what they could not do for themselves.
Here comes
another glimpse of the saints. This time
we gaze into the future with the Revelation text as our guide. There is coming a time when grief will NOT
characterize a saint, for He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death, mourning, crying, or pain will not be
part of the saintly mix. Beside that, we
will no longer have to live by faith, for the dwelling place of God will
forever be with His people.
Another
futuristic view of a saint is that of one whose thirst is forever
quenched. Jesus says: “To the thirsty I will give water without
cost from the spring of the water of life.”
That reminds
me of that saintly Samaritan woman drawing water at Sychar’s well. In chatting with her, Jesus broke about every
rule in the book and danced a jig on about every taboo! He was INCLUSIVE that way. For starters, she was Samaritan. Jesus was Jewish. And everybody knew that
Jews had no dealings with Samaritans.
It’s not unlike Israelis and Palestinians today. Second, she was a woman – and, thus, in those
days, a second-class citizen. Third, He
talked to her in broad daylight. And
what about her love life? Jesus simply pointed out that she had been married
five times.
This woman was
down for the count on about every reliable spiritual, religious, political,
cultural, moral indicator. She had long
since been profiled, judged, shunned, and given the boot! Oh, but she was good to have around if you
needed a bucket of water from the well.
Jesus
said: “If you drink from this well,
you’re going to get thirsty again. But I
have some stuff that will become a well of water within you spritzing up to
eternal life.”
She, the
saintly Samaritan woman, would never be the same. Her heart became a fountain! In fact, she became a great evangelist. Looking for saints today? Look for the ones who have been unjustly profiled,
judged, shunned, and given the boot.
They may have been married five times; they may be gay. That’s where Jesus will be: welcoming them! Or look to the organizers of the Presbyterian
Hunger Program of the PCUSA, our denomination which I am proud to be a member
of. They are on the ground in Ghana helping dig
wells with hydraulic pumps in the Hohoe Municipality – where one in five persons have NO access to
clean water.
In the lives
of the people we are about to name, people who are no longer with us in this
earthly life, we are given glimpses of what it means to be a saint. The glimpses are unique to the person. We cling to God by faith. We cling to them in memories – memories of
everything in them that was good, and kind, and faithful.
Best of all, we
are together with them still in the mystical body of Christ. No wonder we sing that most ancient part of
the communion liturgy: “Therefore, with
angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven!” Here are the gifts of God for the people of
God, the gifts that make us holy! Here in the church militant we are never
closer to the church triumphant than when we enjoy the feast of victory for our
God.
O blest communion,
fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they
in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee,
for all are Thine. Alleluia!
Yet she on earth has
union with God the Three in One
And mystic sweet
communion with those whose rest is won.
Oh blessed heavenly
chorus! Lord, save us by Thy grace,
That we, like Saints
before us, may see Thee face to face.
Amen.
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