Year after year on this Sunday those beautiful words of the hymn “For All the Saints” speak about the scope and breadth of the journey of faith that saints in the church from years past have taken. Listen again to the first verse:
1 For all the saints who from their labors rest, Who Thee by faith before the world confessed, Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. Alleluia! Alleluia!
We indeed bless Jesus’ name for all of the Saints who confessed Jesus before the world. Those Saints of the past did not earn their status as saints. No person can earn sainthood through their actions. No person can tip the balance scale toward sainthood by sheer magnitude of good deeds. In fact we have no righteous deeds at all, instead in our flesh we are completely corrupted with sin and enemies of God.
What makes us saints is that we have been made righteous and holy in Christ. We are saints because of Jesus and because of Jesus alone.
Because we are Saints in Christ, we live our lives full of God’s Blessings. Blessing is not only about material goods and prosperity, but about our eternal inheritance in Christ. Listen now to the seventh verse of the hymn which describes the greatest blessing of all in our lives, our being raised with Christ on the last day:
But lo, there breaks a yet more glorious day; The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way. Alleluia! Alleluia!
The seventh verse of the hymn captures the unspeakable inexplicable blessings of God’s kingdom. Just when we think we have blessings, there is always more. There is more because of God’s plan for us. If you think it can’t get any better than your wedding day, or the birth of your first child, closing on your first home, your children’s wedding and the birth of grandchildren- there is always more.
There is so much more that awaits us than the temporary joys we find in this fallen world. How much greater will be our joy when we are cheering as Jesus passes on his way before us in our perfected bodies! The promised resurrection on the last day is evidence that there is so much more than what we see and experience right now.
From Philippian chapter 3: “But our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject even all things to himself.
Jesus teaches in our gospel lesson how there is so much more- Jesus teaches us that there is so much more than we can see through the statement: “Blessed are you”
Where the world would classify spiritual poverty, persecution, and other simplicities of life as negatives, Jesus turns the view upside down and calls such humble estates blessed.
Jesus teaches is what it means to be ‘poor in spirit’ and ‘rich in Christ.’ “Blessed are you who are poor in Spirit, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.” We are poor in spirit to be sure. By nature, we have nothing in our spirit that commends us before God.
So with respect to our sinful human nature, we are poor. With respect to the material things we have in life, we know that they do not make us rich in spirit.
Despite the poverty in Spirit that we carry with us, we are blessed because Jesus has taken our bankrupt soul into his own flesh. St. Paul writes in the second letter to the Corinthians: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” Through the power of Christ, being poor in spirit means great riches.”
In Christ you are rich beyond what you ever would dream of in life. No longer do you need to think of your worth as defined by the wealth you accumulate in this world. Instead you are defined by the wealth Christ accumulated for you, as he filled you up with the riches of forgiveness and eternal life.
In these riches there is always more, as we continue to learn and study God’s Word. And we continue to become more and more like Jesus, becoming conformed to his image by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus teaches another basic of the faith in our gospel lesson: “Blessed are you who mourn, for you will be comforted.”
We mourn our own sinful nature. When we grow in spiritual maturity we may have an even greater awareness of how your sin can cause hurt to others. We mourn how that even as we trust Jesus as our Savior we still cause hurt in our relationships with others as we play out our identity as sinners in different ways and forms throughout life. And we mourn that we can hurt those who are closest to us who we do not want to hurt or give cause to harm their faith.
But we are comforted in our mourning through the promise of forgiveness and ultimately the promise of the resurrection. With our God, there is always more. We will see those loved ones of ours who have died in the Lord. We shall see Jesus with our own eyes as we gather around him in the ceaseless worship and service to God in heaven.
In the midst of all of this mourning Jesus says blessed are you. He comforts us with the promise that He has entered our death to give us resurrection and eternal life.
As verse four of the Hymn says: “We feebly struggle, they in glory shine” although we struggle on this earth, we already rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus who raises us up with these words: “You are forgiven!”
Even as you mourn on this earth, you are comforted with the Easter triumph of Jesus who raises you and comforts you everyday, saying you are mine, I have purchased you with my own blood.
One more basic that Jesus teaches: Blessed are you who are pure in heart, for you will see God.
As we feebly struggle on earth we struggle with the taunts of others who would have us believe that we cannot see God in our lives. Psalm 42 expresses this taunt: “As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” But it is they who taunt who cannot see God, they who are blinded with sin and self righteousness.
Jesus tells us: Blessed are you, God has created in you a clean heart and a renewed spirit within you. In Christ we are given a new clean heart that seeks kindness for our neighbor and leads us to righteousness and purity in our most important relationships, within our family and within the body of Christ.
With a pure heart we are able to see God in His Word, We are able to see God in the waters of the baptismal font and the meal of the Lord’s Supper. He cleans our hearts through His Word so that our hearts give the world a picture of Jesus.
God blessed Israel through Aaron in Numbers chapter 6, “You shall bless the people of Israel, so shall you say to them, “The Lord Bless you and keep you…. (the words we hear at the end of each worship service) “So shall they put my name on the people of Israel and I will bless them.”
In the same way through Jesus, God has placed his name upon us through the waters of Holy Baptism and blesses us each day in Christ. What all these blessings in the scripture have in common is that they are given to us through Christ. Jesus is the blessed one of the beatitudes who make us blessed by giving us his perfect holiness.
We are indeed Saints and we carry with us the treasure of God’s name first placed upon us in our Baptism. These riches are the great heritage of God’s people. They are riches we carry with us and that cannot be stolen. And we share these riches with the Saints who have gone before us. Amen.