Tag: All Saints

We shall be like Him and see Him as he is

Posted on by nfuller

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we sang in our psalm a short while ago: For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation. Today as we celebrate a 75th anniversary we know that the Father takes pleasure in us as His Church, his own people who have been made pure by the blood of Christ. Today we celebrate the life giving work of faith that Jesus has brought throughout the history of Christ Lutheran, a work that was planned from the foundation of the world.

Our Epistle reading can be heard as a commentary on the Father’s loving work in our very own congregation. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appearswe shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

it is good to hear God’s Word over and over again. In The repetition of hearing God’s Word we receive words of life. Sometimes there are things on our mind and distractions, and although our ears hear the words, the meaning does not sink in. To truly hear God’s Word we must consider our place in life as one of God’s own creation, a sinner in need of restoration, If you remember that you are a creature that depends on the Lord for all of our bodily needs then you can understand what God’s Word means for you in a clearer light.   

We as Christ Lutheran church are called children of God. To those who do not know the Lord in this community, we are even after 75 years virtually unknown and entirely irrelevant. But that is ok, because the purpose of the church is not to earn fame in this world. Instead, it is to know Jesus and be prepared to receive Him when He returns.  “We know that when he appears we shall see Him as he is.” 

On the Last day Jesus will appear to all, but only believers, only the church will have the living faith required to rightly see him as our Lord and God. In John chapter 6 Jesus says:  For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”  The world already has it’s rewards in settling for worshipping created things. Our biggest celebration awaits us. By the power of the Holy Spirit we will one day see Jesus face to face, and know the joy of standing in the presence of God and living.  

With our own eyes we will see the unmatched vision of glory of the risen ascended and glorified Lord.  Jesus’ saving work in our life will come together in that time and transform our bodies of sin to bodies of perfect holiness- fully restored to the glory with which God first created Adam and Eve.  We will be like him in holiness. And we will be able to see his full glory that our sinful human nature was not capable of.

Why do we go to church? Sometimes the answer is family tradition, what I have always done, it makes me feel better, it grounds me and sets my priorities in right order. Or I need to be around other believers to encourage me.  These all may be good reasons to attend worship, but they miss the bigger picture that it is in worship that the salvation begun in our baptism is completed.

Attending worship is a process that leads us to be more like Jesus. As we receive the Lord’s gifts we are being transformed. Although our bodies grow physically weaker in time, God is making our bodies pure and holy.

Beginning in Holy Baptism we received the new life in Christ that prepares our bodies for eternity with the Lord. And as we hear his Word and as we receive his body and Blood our spiritual body is made pure and holy.

By the work of the Holy Spirit we are children of God, and as we look to Jesus day in and day out we put on the robe of Christ’s righteousness and we are made pure and holy as a result.  Jesus teaches: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

75 years for a congregation spans multiple generations. But as much as we like numbers, the story is the same whether it is 50 years, 75, 150, or 200. The meaning of a church’s existence is the same, we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  That is the reason the church exists as a constant in our life, to make us more like Jesus, to prepare us for the time when we will be with the Lord forever.

It is fitting that we celebrate this anniversary on this first Sunday of November during the church’s observance of All Saints Sunday.  The 75th anniversary of Christ Lutheran is not just about who is here today, but also about those saints who have gone before us and now reside in the happy home of the heavenly Jerusalem, those who have sat in these very pews to hear God’s Word, those who have received the gift of new life in Holy Baptism at this very font, who have kneeled at this very altar rail to receive the body and blood of Jesus.  They join with us today. 

The church is here to prepare us as well in body and in soul for the courts of heaven.

The Hymn Jerusalem my happy home reminds us that the Lord Jesus has prepared an eternal home for us: “O Christ, do Thou my soul prepare For that bright home of love, That I may see Thee and adore With all Thy saints above.”  

Sometimes at funerals we talk about a loved one now doing the things they were known for in a greater capacity in heaven, Jim is now golfing in the most beautiful courses, Lucile is cooking for a legion of people, we have heard things like this before.                

But this is not what the scripture tells us, thinking of doing all of your favorite activities in heaven is just an earthly speculation to make people feel better in times of loss. But this is a self centered view of our future life in heaven that misses the point that we will all be together worshipping the Lord in glory beyond what we can imagine in that brilliantly bright home of love that Jesus has prepared for us.

From the scriptures we know that we will be with the Lord in our redeemed and perfected bodies.  We know that we will join with all of the Saints in heaven in worship and celebration of the marriage feast and the Lamb.  And already now we join in the great heavenly celebration through our worship here.  Those saints  who have gone before us are joining with us in the great heavenly banquet, when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper we are joining with them in this hour the great feast of victory for our God. 

Jesus taught Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. To be poor in Spirit is to see that you have nothing to offer God for your salvation- only what Jesus gives you. This means the to be passive recipients of salvation. It means being part of a transformation to be made fit for the kingdom of heaven. In the same way as we are transformed on the inside, in our spirit, it also leads to the transformations we can see in how we manage ourselves in the world in our bodies.

Through the Lord’s gifts to us we develop an attitude to be poor in Spirit in the sense of foregoing the comforts of this world for the sake of identification with Christ.  Because of what the Lord has done for us we relate to the world not in manner of boastfulness or pride, but humility, as we see that all the gifts we have in life come from the Lord and are of little importance compared with the glories of God’s kingdom that awaits us.  

We are poor in Spirit because we see that “We have no lasting city here, our citizenship is in heaven.”  We celebrate this 75th anniversary as those who are poor in spirit- those who love above all else the kingdom of God.

On this celebration of the anniversary of CLC, we look back to the past in thankfulness, but we also look forward “And what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him.” 

Coming out of the Great Tribulation

Posted on by nfuller

9 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!” 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “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.

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 shelter them with his presence.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
    the sun shall not strike them,
    nor any scorching heat.
17 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.”

As we hear from chapter 7 of the book of Revelation, what did John see? As he was exiled on the Island of Patmos on account of God’s Word and the testimony of Jesus John was shown many amazing things beginning with a vision of the glorified Jesus and continuing with visions of the saints surrounding the throne of God.

Our reading from Revelation chapter 7 began with John seeing an additional angel besides those who had been given power over the physical earth. An angel who ascended from the rising sun, with the seal of the living God.  John heard the angel call out with a loud voice to the four angels that were given power to harm earth and sea.

John heard from the angel the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from every tribe of the sons of Israel. Each and every tribe from Judah down through Benjamin. 144,000 This number of completeness, this multiple of 12, communicated that all of the people of Israel were preserved and saved. The promises the Lord made to his people have been kept.

Remember Genesis 15:5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.  The promise has been kept. 

And the promise was not only made to the tribes of Israel.  The LORD told Abraham, “And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all families of the earth shall be blessed.”  John heard the angel speak, and then John 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.”

Earlier in Revelation chapter 5 the song of the Lamb described how Jesus won and ransomed this multitude. “Worthy are you to take the scroll and open its seals, for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation”

This multitude John saw, this was the result of the victory Jesus won on the cross.  This was the reason Jesus taught that the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those persecuted for righteousness sake- all of these are blessed because they have the victory in Christ.

John saw, and heard, and beheld these things and then John was asked to speak, “Who are these clothed in white robes, and from where have they come from?”

John answered in faith, rather than his own explanation he invited the elder to speak God’s truth: “Sir you know” 

We confessed these words as a congregation in the Introit: “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.”

What is the great tribulation?  It is the suffering and trial that is a part of life in this fallen world.  The tribulation includes the attacks of Satan and the attacks of sin in the world on the believer. The tribulation is the last gasp desperation attempt of the darkness to undo the victory Christ won on the cross. It is like the villain or beast in movies that at the last moment while it is falling down into the abyss, grabs a hold of the ankle of the hero. But the last desperate attempt is too late:  Satan is defeated.  Tribulations come at a fierceness that tests our resolve and fortitude, but Satan is defeated.

Jesus warned of the great tribulation, the trials believers will face. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you”

Remember the word that I said to you, A servant is not greater than his master “If they persecuted me they will also persecute you.  If the world hates me they will hate you.”

For some the great tribulation is persecution. Last week in a country and culture very similar to ours, France, believers were struck down and killed while worshipping in church, the third attack in the last few months.  For others persecution may mean the loss of job or livelihood or reputation in society on account of their faith beliefs.

In Matthew Chapter 24 Jesus foretold the destruction of the temple and the tribulations that were coming. “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.”  Jesus described shortly after this tribulation how the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heaven will be shaken.”

And after these tribulations are over. Like the breaking of the dawn, Jesus will appear. “Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”

The time of tribulation began already after Jesus ascended into heaven. The church has long throughout its history understood that we are in the end times, we are in the tribulations that happen before Jesus will return.  We can feel the weight of the tribulations as we consider all of the sufferings we face in our world. Sin and illness, and even viruses that take us to our knees.  When we reflect on loved ones we have lost in our lives, we feel the tribulation of the greatest enemy of all in death.

All of these who have gone through this great tribulation, including all of the saints over the years who are unknown to us, we celebrate Christ’s victory in their lives today during All Saints Day.  And it is not only those who are unknown to us from the past that we celebrate, but also we celebrate that included in this vision John was shown are people like you and I who yet live faithfully on earth. 

All those faithful in our world today, brothers and sisters in Christ who we know and have been impacted by in our life, are also counted as those who have washed their robe and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

This is why we pray in the proper preface to the Lord’s Supper that we join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven in celebrating the marriage feast of the lamb.  It is a great blessing that we can celebrate the Lord’s Supper every Lord’s Day, because each time we gather for worship and come before the throne of God in the Lord’s Supper, we join with those who have gone before us, those who we miss, we join with them before the throne of God.   

What are the robes, what do they mean?  The robes are the garment of Christ’s righteousness that covers us, and makes us worthy. The robes help us to see ‘to God be the glory, not us.’

Forget everything you were ever taught about how to do laundry and how colors mix. Because our God has made a new thing, where red makes white. The blood of the lamb cleans the robes of righteousness and makes them perfectly and completely white.

And with these robes we are perfectly prepared and qualified to be there before the throne of God.  This is a marvelous picture of heaven, beyond what we can imagine, as we offer service or worship before God day and night.  We can hardly imagine what it means to no longer hunger or thirst, to no longer feel scorching heat or numbing cold.

How incomparable to anything we have experienced that Jesus will be our shepherd and guide us to springs of living water.  And wipe away every tear from our eyes. 

There are so many reasons for tears, the aging process we experience, the inevitable march of change from one family context to another, graduations, bitter sweet moments of change, losses- sometimes even before the expected time. 

In a world full of tribulations tears are the normal and here it was revealed to John what t he new normal is, not masks or procedures for safe public engagement but instead palm branches and songs of triumph.  One of my favorite verses related to perseverance through trial in the Lutheran Service Book is stanza 5 of For All the Saints: 

“And when the fight is fierce, the warfare long, steals on the ear the distant triumph song, and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong. Alleluia, Alleluia.”  The triumph song although distant comes to us especially when we are worn and weary by the troubles of this passing world. 

John saw and heard some amazing things while he was exiled on the island of Patmos. And these things are written that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, that in believing we may have life in his name.  We see what John sees, the Lamb reigning on His throne.  Amen.