Grace and Peace to you from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and may our Lord and Savior sanctify you in
the truth, for His word is truth. Amen
All Saints Day
(2010)
The Lamb in
the Midst of the Throne is their Shepherd
Rev. 7:9-10, 17 (ESV)
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,
[10] and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who
sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!". . . . 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."
In the calendar of the
Christian church year, November 1st is set aside as All Saints Day. However,
when this day is not on Sunday, the church commemorates All Saints Day on the
first Sunday after November 1. Such is our commemoration today. All Saints’ Day is a solemn festival in which we
remember our brothers and sisters who have received the crown of glory from our
Lord. It is a
time for remembering the apostles, the martyrs, and all the triumphant hosts that
have preceded us into heaven. It is a day
to proclaim life beyond the reality of death. It is a day to grasp again,
through faith, the blessings reserved for the people of God, whose names are
written in the Lamb’s book of life!
This is also the time for
remembering that Christ’s holy church is not bound by the fetters of time. Furthermore,
Christ’s holy church is not limited just to those persons already with Him in
eternity, nor is it limited to those persons still here on earth in the
congregations we see about us. In reality, Christ’s holy church is the entire body
of Christ that is all who believe in our Lord, Jesus Christ as their Savior and
who turn to Him in adoration, revering Him; the
Lamb in the midst of the throne who is their Shepherd.
To the casual observer, the
church is nothing more than a building or the congregation. However, buildings
have a way of deteriorating and people come and go. Therefore, if we limit our
grasp of the church to simply what the eye can see we will completely miss the
true character of the holy Christian church.
The church, as God has
ordained her, is timeless. It is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Therefore,
time is of no consideration where the church is concerned. Moreover, the church
is the whole company of God’s faithful people from the beginning of time to the
very end of the age. The church belongs to those who, through the sacrament of
Baptism are children of God. The church is made up of those who, through faith,
belong to the Body of Christ and who worship the Lamb in the midst of the Throne of God as their Shepherd. It
has been this way since the Creation.
In the beginning God created
the Garden of Eden. In that divine act He established His kingdom of glory on
earth and there He created the first church into which He placed the first
church member; Adam. However, Adam was not your ordinary church member, he was
special. Adam was created in the image of God; he was created without sin. Yet
God still created the church to sustain all that Adam would ever need. Possibly,
this was his undoing, because the harmony between God and man in God’s church
was soon shattered by sin. Adam surrendered to Satan’s temptation, disobeying
God, bringing sin into the world and into the church. Pride had led him to
yield to the temptation of wanting to be a god, establishing his own kingdom of
man’s glory. Sadly, for the world, Adam was successful.
Falling from grace, Adam and
Eve lost the image of God and became the image of sinful man. Banished from the
Garden of Eden, Adam was left to fend for himself in his manmade kingdom. Yet,
fortunately for him, God did not abandon him entirely.
Banished from the Garden,
alone, without God, having to fend for themselves; Adam and Eve would certainly
have perished if God had not had pity on them. God made them garments and
clothed them (Gen. 3:21), protecting them from the elements and He promised
that although He was banishing them from the Garden, He would not abandon them
altogether; He would send a Savior to defeat the Satan and rescue them from
their sin. They had tried to replace God as the source of life with their own abilities;
however, they soon learned that they were poor substitutes as providers, both
physically and spiritually. This was the great tragedy, the great sorrow of
their sin; for without God as the source of their lives they were nothing more
than the living dead. The Spirit of life had left them to a cruel and cold
world that offered only death; the death that awaits us from the first day we
are born.
Whenever the Baptismal Rite
speaks of man being conceived and born in sin, it points us to the truth of
Holy Scripture which declares that ever since sin enter the world through Adam,
man is by nature not a part of God’s holy church. He is conceived and born in
sin and therefore he is outside the church. When an infant is brought into the
house of God for Holy Baptism, the Baptismal Rite, at the very beginning,
reminds all within hearing that this child was conceived and born in sin and is
therefore not a part of God’s holy kingdom or His holy church. The child is the
product of man and so it is characterized by the things of man. You and I, as
is every child ever born since Adam (with the exception of Jesus) are conceived
apart from God, therefore, at birth, we enter the world subject to the wrath of
God.
However, just as God did not
abandon Adam, He has also not abandoned us. Out of God’s great love and mercy,
the same Savior, the same Redeemer that He promised to Adam and Eve after their
fall into sin, He has also promised to us. Although all mankind is conceived
and born in sin all is not lost for man could be redeemed by the Savior. That
is, they could be made right with God and become members once again in God’s
holy church. Moreover, God has made this Savior available to all through His
holy, Saving Word, the Gospel which offers the forgiveness of all our sins
through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Lamb in the midst of the Throne who is
our Shepherd.
Faith in the life, death,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the means by which God reunites Himself
with man. Moreover, it is this same Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, who is
the bridge by which the Holy Spirit leads us back to God, back to the family of
God, and back to the household of God; His Church. Through Adam, man sought to
abandon God, but God, in His mercy, promised a Savior who would once again
establish His fellowship with Man and He fulfilled His promise by sending His
only, begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the
very Lamb in the midst of the Throne to be our Shepherd saving us from our
sin. He sent His Son to be the chief priest and prophet of His Church.
Throughout mankind we find numerous definitions for
the church. However, as Lutherans, we believe, teach and confess that the
Church: “is the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is preached in
its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel (AC
VII). Moreover, “The holy Christian church is the communion of saints, the
total number of those who believe in Christ. All believers in Christ, but only
believers, are members of the church (invisible church) (AC VIII). That is, the
church resides in the hearts of all true believers. We also maintain that a
seven-year-old child knows what the church is, namely, holy believers and sheep
who hear the voice of their Shepherd (Luther’s Smallcald Articles).
Furthermore, “it is also taught among us that one holy Christian church will be
and remain forever. . . . . For it is sufficient for the true unity of the
Christian church that the Gospel be preached in conformity with a pure
understanding of it and that the sacraments be administered in accordance with
the divine Word. It is as Paul says in Eph. 4:4, 5, ‘There is one body and one
Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one
Lord, one faith, one baptism.’” The membership of the Holy Christian
Church includes you and me, as contemporary Christians and it includes also
Moses, Abraham, David, Matthew, John, Paul, Luther, all those who in faith have
preceded us into heaven, and all those believers who will follow after us.
The church is timeless, but in terms of our temporal
existence, we might ask, how do we connect with the church which exists in eternity?
We connect through worship. We connect by offering our prayers and praise
(sacrificially) and by listening to God’s Saving Word preached (sacramentally).
We connect by receiving His grace distributed through the sacraments for the
forgiveness of sins (sacramentally) just as if we were with the saints in
heaven who worship the Lamb in the midst
of the Throne as their Shepherd. Today, as you knell at the chancel rail to
receive the body and blood of our Lord, you will be in communion with Jesus;
touching Him physically, as He comes to you, bridging the gap between you and
the church in heaven. In this holy and precious supper of our Lord’s, we become
one with Him and with each other, we literally become one body in Christ; the
Holy Christian Church. What a marvelous truth to take with you as you leave
here this morning. Christ is in you and with you spiritually and physically and
you are one with all who commune with Christ.
Filled with the blessed truth of our oneness in
Christ, we are also reminded that there is an overriding difference between
ourselves and the saints who have gone before us into eternity; we are still on
this side of heaven where we are subjected to the raging assaults of Satan. We
are still earthly vessels, fragile and weak clinging tenaciously to our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ for strength to resist the temptations of Satan and
for forgiveness when we fail. But we are indeed blessed because our Lord loves
us and wants all of us to be saved. He calls upon us to be His ambassadors, His
ministers of reconciliation. It was our Lord Jesus who suffered and died so we
could be reconciled to our heavenly Father, so we could be saved from our sin.
Let us pray: Grant us Holy Father that our confidence will
always be in Christ, the Lamb in the midst of the Throne who is our Shepherd,
who has made and confirmed our reservations in heaven. Help us to take great comfort
in the promise that our names have been entered into His book of life. Continue
to lead us with Your people of all times and all places to praise His holy name;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
May the peace of God, which
passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.