11.2.25

[00:00:00] Blessed All Saints. Dear Saints of St. Paul Lutheran Church, transferred to today, November 1st is All Saints Day. [00:00:08] It's November 2nd today, year of our Lord 2025. Let's pray and dig into this podcast. [00:00:14] Almighty and everlasting God, you knit together your faithful people of all times and places into one holy communion, the mystical body of your Son, Jesus Christ. [00:00:26] Grant us so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that together with them we may come to the unspeakable joys you have prepared for those who love you through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. [00:00:42] Amen. [00:00:44] Amen. That language of mystical union. The mystical body of Christ comes from the mystical union. There's probably three chief unions, theological unions that we speak of in the church. [00:00:58] You can pause and play a game with your family. What are those three unions? Here they are. The first one is the hypostatic union, or the union of the two natures in Christ, both divine and human nature, united in the singular person of Christ. Hypostatic union. The other is the sacramental union. [00:01:20] That is the way that the Lord Jesus brings His body and his blood to the bread and the wine. Sometimes we use the language in with under. The Bible uses the language is, this is my body. This is the blood of the New Testament. [00:01:35] We don't know exactly how that happens, so we give it the name the sacramental union. The third is the mystical union, and that is the union of the Christians to Christ that we're part of his body and that he gives Himself to us with the Father and the Spirit and our eternal life and his kingdom. And that mystical union is that language shows up here in this collect, the mystical body of your son, Jesus Christ. [00:02:00] It's a perfect prayer for all saints, which, it's interesting, probably the way this worked in the ancient church is the days that the martyrs or the saints died or that their bones got moved from some place to another, went onto the church calendar as that day. [00:02:17] So, like, oh, what? June 24th is the day of the beheading of John the Baptist. And December 26th is the feast of St. John. And all these different days come up during this 29th. November 29th is St. Michael and All Angels. Wait, yeah, September 29th. Anyway, August 24th, St. Bartholomew's Day. Days that they died. Or days, probably more likely, that the churches named after them were commemorated. And so you start to fill up the church calendar. And at some point, the church calendar got so filled up that they had to pick one day to be the day for all the other saints. In fact, instead of All Saints Day, it probably could just be all the other saints days. And then if you have a day for all the saints, then you need a second day for all the people in Purgatory. [00:03:09] So the Catholic Church celebrates on today, November 2nd, All Souls Day. [00:03:15] Just weird. [00:03:17] We don't have All Souls Day because we don't believe in purgatory. All the souls are either saints in heaven with the Lord Jesus forgiven by the gift of baptism, or in perdition, in destruction, in hell because of unbelief and suffering for their sins. So we don't have All Souls Day, but we do have All Saints Day. And in our tradition. Interesting, it's sort of shifted to a day of remembrance. [00:03:41] It's the day that we ring the bell for those who died in the Lord's name in our congregation in this last year. It's the day that we remember not just the saints on earth, but the saints in heaven. And the scripture passages really revolve around that. So that's kind of nice. It's not an accident that Reformation Day is right before All Saints Day. I think I've told you this story a million times, but Frederick the Wise had all these relics in Wittenberg. That's why he wouldn't let the indulgence sellers come. But he put out all those relics on all Saints Day, November 1, in the castle Church. They'd put these tables out and put all the relics and you'd go and do all the rightful devotions in front of all these relics. So all these people were in town. They'd come into Town on October 31st so they could be there November 1st to see the relics. And so that's why luther posted the 95 theses when the big crowd was there and going to the Castle Church. Anyway, All Saints Day is a great day of remembrance for us. Starting with. So we have Psalm 149, second to last Psalm. [00:04:46] We have for the first lesson, Revelation 7, 2, 17. [00:04:51] This beautiful, beautiful vision of the, of the innumerable crowd coming with their robes made white from the blood of the lamb. We have First John 3 is our epistle and Matthew 5, Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes as the, as the Gospel lesson. But first the Psalm, Psalm 149, that second last Psalm. Remember, once we get to the end of the Psalms, I don't know, maybe Psalm 146 or something, we're, we are hallelujahing all over the place. We don't see it in the. [00:05:25] We don't see it in the English because when you have that Hebrew, hallelujah, you're translating it and to praise the Lord. But yeah, look at this. Psalm 146. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. O my soul. [00:05:38] Praise the. It ends. Praise the Lord. So you have these great alleluias. Psalm 147. Praise the Lord. It's good to sing praises to our God. It's pleasant and praise is beautiful. Look at the end of verse147. Psalm147. 12. [00:05:51] Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise your God, O Zion. [00:05:54] It's all over the. Praise the lord. It ends. 148. Praise the Lord. Praise him from the heavens. Praise him in the heights. Praise him all angels praise him all his hosts, Praise him, Sun and moon, Praise him All you stars of light, Praise Him. Praise Him. This is this sort of culminating hymn of praise. We're in the middle of this crescendo of hallelujahs. Psalm 149. Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song and his praise in the assembly of the saints. And then Psalm 150 is alleluia. Hallelujah. All the way into the end. Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in his mighty firmament. Praise him for his mighty acts. Praise him according to his excellent graces. Praise him with the sound of trumpet. Praise him with lute and harp. Praise him with timberlan dances. Praise him with stringed instruments and flutes. Praise him with the hot symbols. Praise him with clashing symbols. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. That's how the Psalm, the Book of Psalms ends. So we're in Psalm 149. [00:06:49] We're in this. [00:06:51] It's right before we sort of. We're at peak alleluia. We're at this crescendo of praise. So it's marvelous. And here's the reason why. This is the All Saints psalm, among other reasons, but especially verse 4 and 5. [00:07:08] For the Lord takes pleasure in his people. [00:07:11] He will beautify the humble with salvation. [00:07:14] Let the saints be joyful in glory. Let them sing aloud on their beds. [00:07:20] Let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two edged sword in their hand, so that the saints are known by praising the Lord. This is this call to praise for the Lord who has called us to be his own. Now that does bring up the question, what is a saint? [00:07:38] And this is something good for us to consider, because coming out of the middle Ages. A saint was a person who reached a state of perfection such that they didn't need any good works. They were holy enough to go straight to heaven, as opposed to us normal folk who would die and have to go spend a little time in purgatory. [00:07:55] Purgatory is like the holiness finishing school. You know, you got to go get. [00:08:00] You got to kind of get rid of all the bad habits and make yourselves worthy to get to heaven. That's purgatory. But those who didn't need that, those A plus students in the holiness of living, those were considered saints, and you had to be declared a saint by the Pope. That's the process of canonization. And it normally is connected to miracles. [00:08:21] Two miracles in life and two miracles in death via your relics. Those would indicate you're being a saint. We say, no, look, to be a saint means that our sins are forgiven. [00:08:35] This is our evangelical definition of sainthood. We confess that not by our own reason or strength are we holy and perfect, but rather the Lord Jesus forgives our sins and gives us his own righteousness as a gift. [00:08:52] That's the whole business of the Reformation. So that we're saints by grace. [00:08:57] In Revelation 7. This is the Old Testament. [00:09:00] It's an interesting thing to note that. [00:09:04] I don't know exactly. If you like, if you go back to your old TLH someday, you guys probably have an old. The Lutheran hymnal hanging around the house. And you go and you look at the readings, you'll notice that for most Sundays, they just had an Epistle and a Gospel reading. They didn't have an Old Testament reading except for the feast days. [00:09:27] And then they would often have an Old Testament lesson and a Gospel lesson. So for, like, what's an example, Ash Wednesday or All Saints or these. In other words, it gets on the feast days. It gets a little bit. [00:09:45] It gets a little bit wonky. Well, that's one of the things that's reflected here, and this happens sometimes, just in Easter season, too, is that instead of having an Old Testament lesson for the first lesson, you end up having an Epistle. It's one of these kind of hangovers from the ancient church where you'd have an Old Testament in place of the Epistle or an Epistle in place of the Old Testament. So our first lesson is not an Old Testament lesson, it's a New Testament lesson. It's Revelation, chapter seven. [00:10:18] And it gives us a key insight into how to read the book of Revelation. Remember, one of the rules for reading Revelation is you have to. [00:10:25] You have to Say, what am I hearing and what am I seeing? Because John will say, I heard and then I saw. [00:10:31] And oftentimes the thing that you hear and the thing that you see are the opposite of one another, but they are the same. I'll give you an example. In chapter five, John heard, the lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered. [00:10:46] So he hears about the lion, and then he looks and he sees the lamb who had been slain. [00:10:53] Now, there's nothing more opposite than a lion and a lamb. There's nothing more opposite than conquering and being slain. [00:11:01] And yet that conquering lion and that slain lamb is Jesus. He's both at the same time, described in completely opposite ways, by what's heard and by what's seen, but encompassing the same reality. Does that make sense? So in Revelation, I'm asking you if it makes sense. And I don't even see you because I'm recording this the day before you're listening to it. That was like a trick. [00:11:28] Anyway, so Revelation 7, he says, I heard the number, and then I looked and I saw. [00:11:39] And what he hears and what he sees are the same thing, but described in opposite language. So he hear, I heard. This is verse four. I heard the number of the sealed. 144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel. 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed, 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 from the tribe of Gad. All the way through all 12 tribes, 12,000 from each. That totals 144,000. That's a gross thousand or a thousand gross. How would you say that? A dozen dozen? [00:12:10] It's the perfect number. It's not 143,997. [00:12:16] It's not 144,600. It's 144,000. Precisely. [00:12:23] But then verse nine, after this I looked. [00:12:26] And behold, a great multitude that no one could number. From every tribe, every nation, all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, palm branches in their hands, crying with a loud voice. Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and the Lamb. [00:12:45] Now, which is it, John? Is it 144,000? Or is it a multitude that can't be named, they can't be numbered? [00:12:53] Is it from the tribes of Israel, or is it from every tribe and tongue and nation? And the answer is yes. This is the Church, described first from the perspective of God's perfect election and described second from our own perception. [00:13:11] This is all the Church. It's not like there's two groups, 144,000 and innumerable multitude. No, this is one church. [00:13:22] And they're there, and they're wearing white robes and they're singing the song to the Lamb. [00:13:27] And they all fall down and worship the Lord. And then one of the elders looks at John, who's having this vision, looking at this huge crowd at this church. [00:13:35] And the elder says, who are these clothed in white robes? Where have they come from? [00:13:40] And I said, you know, sir. And he says, these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. How beautiful is that? So here we are with these robes, stained from our own sin and failure and everything wretched about us. [00:13:59] But now we've taken those robes off and dipped them in the Lamb's blood and pulled them out, and they're perfect and clean, and whoosh. [00:14:08] That's a picture of being covered in the righteousness of Christ. [00:14:15] We sing that in the gradual. These are they who have come out of the great tribulation. [00:14:21] They have washed their robes and made them white. That's in the blood of the Lamb. [00:14:27] Blessed are those whose strength is in you. Blessed are those whose strength is you who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. Beautiful. [00:14:34] Beautiful. That. That picture of the. Of the saints in white. [00:14:40] That's probably the. [00:14:42] The most detailed picture that we have of those who we love who are with the Lord. [00:14:51] So wonderful. [00:14:53] Then. [00:14:54] 1 John 3. [00:14:56] One of my favorite passages. Someone jot this down. This should be my epistle for whenever my funeral is there. See what kind of love the Father has given unto us. I remember this. Learning this song when I was a kid. Behold what manner of. Of the Father. You can tell me if you learned that song. Has given unto us that. That children's Sunday school song. Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us that we should be called the children of God. There's so many other things that God could call us, rightly so. I mean, according to our sin or failures or whatever. No, he doesn't do that. He says, you. [00:15:35] You sinners are my children. [00:15:41] So we are. [00:15:43] We are the children of God. We're not the slaves of God. [00:15:47] We're not the enemies of God. [00:15:50] We're not strangers to God. [00:15:52] We're. We're not even just the kind of soldiers of God or the tribe of God. We're the children of God. [00:16:01] You. [00:16:04] This is one of these astonishing promises that is just good for us to reflect on. How do we think about it? Every morning you wake up and you can look in the mirror and look at yourself and say, I am a child of God. I am God's child. [00:16:23] That is just an amazing promise. [00:16:26] Behold. No wonder John says, behold what manner of love the Father's given unto us. It's almost astonishing. [00:16:32] And then we have the Gospel. [00:16:35] This is really Jesus premier sermon. It's the Sermon on the Mount. The very first part, which is the Beatitudes. The blessed are. [00:16:44] And there's nine of these. And then a tenth. [00:16:47] Blessed are, blessed are. [00:16:50] Most of them are future tense. Just maybe pay attention as you're looking at the Beatitudes there. So there's nine and a tenth. Let me see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. [00:17:04] Yeah, I mean maybe just kind of. [00:17:07] So you have the first and the eighth. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. The first and the eighth are present tense. [00:17:17] 2 through 7 are future tense. [00:17:21] 9 and then that kind of follow up are. [00:17:27] It's kind of an expansion of it. But you have first. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [00:17:34] Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. That's future. Blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the earth. That's future. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They shall be satisfied. Merciful shall receive mercy. The pure in heart shall see God. Peacemakers shall be called the sons of God. [00:17:51] And then blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [00:17:56] And then instead of blessed are those, here comes number nine. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil falsely against you on my account. And then the sword of 10th, rejoice and be glad your reward is great in heaven. I guess ninth, I mean, how many? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. That would be the night. Rejoice and be glad, your reward is great in heaven. [00:18:21] So they persecuted the prophets who were before you. [00:18:24] Now there's so much there. I mean, this is a whole lifetime of study that Jesus throws everything on its head. You know, we think blessed are the. [00:18:33] Blessed are the rich in spirit. Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit. We think blessed are those who are happy. Jesus said, blessed are those who mourn. [00:18:42] We say blessed are the strong. He says, blessed are the meek. [00:18:45] We say, blessed are those who are full and satisfied. He says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst so good. [00:18:54] So that Jesus is the one who lifts up the lowly and casts down the prideful. [00:19:03] And he gives us his blessing in the midst of it so that he's announcing to us that his kingdom is different than the kingdom of the world. [00:19:11] The way his church works is different than the way the world works. [00:19:16] We have to think about this quite a bit because we're always tempted. [00:19:22] Here's. Here's where the battleground goes. [00:19:25] We're always tempted to define the good life not by God's standards, but by the world's standards. [00:19:35] Just that question there. Such a fantastic, fantastic diagnostic question. [00:19:42] What is the good life? [00:19:44] And if we let the devil or the world or our own sinful flesh define what the good life is and we start chasing after that, then we cut ourselves off from the good life of the kingdom. [00:19:57] Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things will be added to you. [00:20:01] That we endure suffering as faithful soldiers. That we trust that the Lord is with us in the midst of all of our trouble. All of this. Take up your cross and follow me. [00:20:11] That the good life is the life with Christ. [00:20:16] And whatever else comes great. [00:20:19] Whatever else is taken away, no problem. [00:20:23] Our life is hidden with God in Christ. That is the good life, then we have this blessing. [00:20:30] But if we let the world or our sinful flesh define the good life, then boy, we are in trouble. That's the worldly church. Jesus warns about it in Revelation, the church that lets the world define the good life. So we got to be careful about that. [00:20:46] Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad. What? Rejoice and be glad when I'm persecuted. [00:20:58] That's what Jesus says. [00:21:00] We've got some wonderful stuff coming. Also. It's the commemoration of the faithful departed. So we'll ring the bell for those who died in the in the Lord's name from our congregation this year the choir will sing the commemoration of the faithful departed. And at the late service we have God be praised. The baptism for the Newton children and 11 confirmants on on deck for tomorrow. [00:21:27] So that's also wonderful. So keep an eye out for that as well. We'll sing we. Oh, look at this. [00:21:33] We praise you and acknowledge you as our closing hymn. [00:21:38] So wonderful. [00:21:40] All right, dear saints, by the way, I think every day is all saints day. [00:21:45] This is why I begin all of my sermons. Etc. Dear saints is to remind us that we are saints, not by our own efforts. It's not that all of us have performed two miracles in our life and our bones will perform two miracles. We're saints because our sins are forgiven. We're saints because we are wearing the white robe of the righteousness of Christ, that robe that's made white by the blood of the Lamb. We're saints because the Lord has put away our sins on Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world that includes mine and yours, and he imputes to us the righteousness of Christ. So he has forgiven us. And that's where our saints, our sainthood comes from. God be praised for that. All right, see you in a few minutes. That's the Sunday Drive to Church podcast.