Saints Now and
Eternally
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The most popular
preachers are those who want you to believe that, if you are a Christian, your
life will be better. You will be "blessed" with riches and your
problems will disappear. Apparently they have not read the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus tells us that you are blessed when you have nothing but Christ, when the
world hates you because of Him. The devil hates Jesus. The world hates Jesus.
Your own flesh hates Him! All three of those enemies are after you because you
belong to Jesus. The devil’s highest goal is to get you to stop trusting in
Jesus. He wants you to believe that God is going to punish you. Dear saints of
God, don’t believe him. We saw St.
John's vision in the book of Revelation. The robes of
the saints are white. You have been washed clean by the blood of the Lamb.
Satan can accuse you all he wants, but it doesn't change the fact that Jesus,
the Son of God, died for your sins and blotted them out by the blood that He
shed on the cross. The devil says you're no saint, but the Lord says you are
His. Are you going to believe the father of lies or your heavenly Father? Dear
Christian, your whole life, you will struggle to believe you are a saint when
the devil says you aren't. But thanks be to God in Christ, whose death and
resurrection wipe out your sins and defeat the devil's lies.
But there's more
suffering for Christ's saints in this life. The world hates you because of
Jesus. Jesus says, "Blessed are you
when you are persecuted for my sake." That means the world doesn't
just hate you because of you. It hates you because you are in Christ. It hates
you because you desire to do good and to make peace and to be merciful to
others, because you desire to live like Christ. Sometimes we try to do good,
and it seems like the world pays us back with trouble and difficulty and
misery. What did you expect? The world hates Christ and so it hates those who
are His. The mere fact that you are baptized is an accusation against a world
that despises Christ and His gift of eternal life. So the world will hate you.
It is your connection to Jesus that earns you the scorn and bitterness of this
world. The world hates Christ. It put Him to death. But He has risen! He has
overcome this world. And you will overcome it too.
There is still
more suffering and struggle for Christ's saints! Our own sinful flesh hates Jesus
too. It rebels. It struggles. It wants to break free. It wants to toss Jesus
out and go back to enjoying the favor and temptations of the world. It's bad
enough to have Satan and the world against us because of Jesus, but our own
flesh? We are temples of the Holy Spirit, and in us the Spirit does battle
against our flesh. Your sinful nature wants nothing to do with Jesus or
righteousness or God's Word or loving others. It wants to live and do its own
thing. So the sinful nature has got to go. So it is that the Old Adam within us
gets drowned at the font in Baptism. That Old Adam is silenced by the words of
absolution and purged by the body and blood of Jesus within you. It is those
gifts of Jesus that make you saints. And that is our struggle: that when we act
like pagan sinners, the Lord still calls us saints! That is the Spirit at work within
you, so you may believe your sins are forgiven and that you are God's children.
When you see Jesus face to face, you will see what God Himself has made you: a
new creation by His Word and sacraments!
If you listen to the
beatitudes closely, you will see that He describes His saints in this life, but
He describes gifts which are for the life to come. That's the struggle of
saints. We know our Lord has given us forgiveness of sins and eternal life. We
know the glory of the Lamb's throne in paradise awaits us. Until that day, we
live as saints whose hope is in Christ's promises. The Lord calls us blessed even
though we are targets of the Devil. The Lord says we are blessed even though we
are hated by the world. The Lord says we are blessed even though our sinful
flesh could care less. You are baptized, absolved, fed with Christ’s body and
blood. That's what makes you a saint!
But it is a mighty
struggle with such great enemies out to get us. That is why we celebrate All
Saints' Day! We are blessed to see the gifts of Christ in the saints who have
gone before us: saints who were fed to the lions or burned like torches; saints
who were skinned alive or exiled to dismal places; saints who witnessed to
kings. The saints who are in heaven are the saints who heard the preaching of
Christ in all times and all places, like our own parents and children who have
gone before us, delivered from this evil world and brought into the glory of
Christ's heavenly throne. When we sing in the liturgy, Sunday after Sunday,
about "angels and archangels and
all the company of heaven," we are rejoicing that our Lord really keeps
His promises. He really does preserve His saints through their hardships and struggles.
He really does indeed deliver His saints from their enemies. He has done it for
them, and He will do it for you. After all, you are saints. Jesus says so. In
the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all
understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.
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