Rejoicing For And With The Saints
Revelation 7:9-17
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Revelation 7:14-17 “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. 16 They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; 17 for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… Today is the day the church celebrates the eternal life of the saints who have gone before us, those who have died, those whose bodies have returned to dust but whose souls live forever with God in heaven. Some of us have lost loved ones who did not die in faith. We mourn for them, but we don’t mourn for the saints. We indeed mourn our temporary separation from them, but we don’t mourn for them.
Today is not unlike Easter Sunday. On Easter we celebrate Jesus’ victory over the devil who sought to destroy Him, over the world that hated Him, and over death that held Him captive for three days. Today, as we commemorate the faithful departed, we celebrate the same victory that is theirs through faith in Christ, the faith in which they were baptized, the faith they confessed in this life, the faith in which they fell asleep. It’s the same victory: Victory over the devil who can harm them no more; victory over the world that hated them and still hates us; and victory over death.
But unlike Jesus, the grave has held them for longer than three days. So, which saints are on your mind today? For me, it is my Dad who died three years ago and my Mom who died last January. Who is on your mind today – a mom or dad, a son or daughter, husband or wife, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa, a close friend, a fellow church member? Their bodies have been in the grave for a long time. We don’t see their victory. All we see is dust and ashes, caskets and urns and cemeteries, empty rooms and vacant chairs at the dinner table. If only we could get a glimpse of something more…
God provides that glimpse in the Revelation of St. John, just a little glimpse beyond the veil of death to see things as they really are. There’s plenty of fiction floating around about what heaven is like, but fiction is worthless. It’s a lie. It isn’t real. Only God can tell us the truth about the saints in heaven. Only God can give us a real live glimpse of those who have fallen asleep in Him.
First, see how many of them there are: “A great multitude which no one could number.” In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” In comparison to the billions and billions of people who have lived on earth over the roughly six thousand years of human history, the number of saints is relatively few. And in any given room or any given city, the number of believers in Christ is relatively low.
But add them up – year after year, century after century, from every nation, tribe, language and people across the earth – and you have a that “multitude which no one can number.” And they all stand together, not one over here and one over there. There is no loneliness, no isolation, no divisions or separations in heaven.
And see where they are gathered: “Standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” They are standing. They are not lying there helpless as we might remember them on earth. They are not stranded in a wheelchair or hobbling slowly across a room. They are standing. They are not fishing or playing golf or strumming a harp while floating on a cloud. They are standing.
Our sinful minds sometimes imagine that our favorite past times on earth become the stuff of heaven. Many people, even some who call themselves Christians, are disappointed to learn that all you get in heaven is God. But those who are not satisfied with God on earth need not worry about having to put up with Him in heaven; they won’t even be there. Only those who love God and find their comfort in the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world – only they will stand in his presence forever.
Notice how the saints are dressed: As we sang earlier, “Behold, a host arrayed in white”, based on Revelation 7. They are “arrayed in white robes,” white like our paraments today, but so much brighter and whiter. They are now pure and sinless; they are no longer plagued by a sinful nature that pulls at them and drags them off into shameful thoughts and deeds.
What are they holding in their hands? Palm branches, like the Israelites waved at their Feast of Tabernacles when they remembered, every year, the temporary dwellings in which they lived during their sojourn – their journey from Egypt’s slavery to their permanent home in the promised land of Canaan. That Feast of Tabernacles was a foreshadowing of the temporary dwellings of the saints here on this sin-filled earth as we journey from death to life, to the permanent dwellings with God in the new heavens and the new earth. So the saints in heaven hold palm branches remembering that their days of temporary dwellings are over.
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Who else is there? Who stands with the saints? “All the angels stood around the throne.” Our loved ones do not become angels when they die; that is a ridiculous pagan myth. But they do stand with the angels, one great company of the heavenly host, “standing before the throne and before the Lamb…” singing his praises.
See what the saints have left behind. “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” In case you were unaware, this – all around us – is the great tribulation, not the great vacation. It’s not just sickness and pain and financial insecurity. It’s not just the loneliness and uncertainty of the future and the fickleness of friends that plague us in this world. Those are terrible things. But we have to understand, our faith in Christ is under constant attack in this world by the devil, by the world, by our sinful nature. Finding the truth of God and holding onto it is difficult and challenging. Holding onto faith in Christ is not automatic for the Christian, and it is even harder as the cross presses harder.
Revelation 12:11 states, “And they overcame [the evil one] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” They come out of the great tribulation; they have been called out of this sinful world, one by one, as death ushers them out of the great tribulation and into the great calm of heaven. They are the ones we sang about, the saints “who from their labors rest.” They can finally breathe a sigh a relief. It’s over. They made it.
Finally, dear fellow redeemed, see what God does for them as they live in His presence and serve him day and night in His Temple: “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” God shelters them with his presence, providing for their every need, protecting them from all harm and danger. After all the struggles with sin and its consequences here on earth, the saints in heaven finally reach the lap of their heavenly Father who knows better than anyone just how hard it has been. He comforts them: “There, there; all that is done. You’re here with Me now.”
This, my friends, is not pious fiction. This is no false hope. This is the Word of the Lord God Himself. This is what heaven is like for our friends who have fallen asleep, and this is what heaven will be like for you and me when we fall asleep. The grave may hold us longer than it held Jesus, but it will not hold us forever. Remember what we confessed earlier, “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”
In the Apostles’ Creed, we also confess, “I believe in the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints.” The holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, includes both us and them – believers on earth and believers in heaven. It is one great communion, it is one great fellowship. But if you want to catch a glimpse of this communion, if you want to be close to the saints in heaven, don’t go to the cemetery. The souls of the saints are not connected to their decaying flesh. The souls of the saints stand before the Lamb in perfect communion. Our connection to them is through the Lamb. And the Lamb has given us a way to stand in his presence even on this side of death: in the Holy Communion. Here our connection is with Christ, the Lamb, with the very body and blood that our friends in heaven stand before and worship now.
Through Jesus, through the Lamb, we are connected to the whole body, even the body of believers on the other side of death. Here we stand before the throne and before the Lamb in Holy Communion and sing, “Hosanna! Come and save us now! Blessed is he! Blessed is he! Lamb of God, have mercy on us!” There they stand before Him, in the company of all the angels and sing, “Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb!” Here the circle is complete and the fellowship is complete.
And where the saints are, there one day you and I shall be if we hold onto the faith in which they fell asleep. They have reached their goal, but we are still running the race. Their blessedness is experienced in glory and is seen. Ours is hidden in meekness and believed, as we believe the words Jesus spoke in the Gospel, “Blessed are they…” The “they” is “we” as we live on earth in humble faith on our way to the mansions of heaven.
In one of his volumes, Martin Luther wrote, “This life is not godliness, but growth in godliness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way; the process is not yet finished, but it has begun; this is not the goal, but it is road; at present all does not gleam and glitter, but everything is being purified.”
Hang in there, dear fellow redeemed; it won’t be long now. God has baptized us into this race for the finish line, the heavenly goal. Jesus has finished the race for us and won the prize for us and feeds and nourishes us along the way with his Word and Sacraments. That’s why we keep running; He has told us that through Him we will make it, and God is faithful. And when we do make it, those of us who are left here on earth until the final coming of Jesus will celebrate us, too, at least once a year at the festival of All Saints.
Come now to the altar to receive the real body and blood of Jesus – the same Jesus before whom all those who have died in the faith now stand.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
