{"id":11013,"date":"2025-10-27T10:10:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T17:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=11013"},"modified":"2025-10-27T10:10:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T17:10:15","slug":"all-saints-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=11013","title":{"rendered":"All Saints Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Select here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ephesians 1:11-23; Revelation 21:1-6<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Sermon for All Saints Sunday<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today is another festival Sunday \u2013 All Saints Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2006 hymnal from Augsburg Publishing, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, <\/em>at the front of the book, there is a list of saints and others to be remembered. For example, they have a special day (July 27) for Mary Magdalene and call her \u201can apostle.\u201d The word \u201capostle\u201d really means missionary. Does that title really apply to Mary Magdalene? If one is going to do that one should go to the 16th<\/sup> chapter of the Book of Romans where there is a woman named Junias. She was an apostle, a missionary in the normal sense of the term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that list of saints and others to be remembered, they don\u2019t use the word, \u201csaint.\u201d The real reason for leaving out the term \u201csaint\u201d is like the trend of not giving grades so everyone is equal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul says everyone who is baptized in Christ is a saint. The whole matter of what is a saint is not sorted out in the popular mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do we say about those who have gone ahead?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the day we celebrate all who are now and in the future in Christ. The real question is the question: What is really real?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we live our daily lives, we live as if the world is flat, although we know the world is really round. We live as if heaven is up and hell is down, although we know that\u2019s not the case. It seems as if the sun goes around the earth, although we know that the earth goes around the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can tell you every Sunday that your works don\u2019t do you any good, and yet people live as if works is what it\u2019s really about, and not what Christ has done on the cross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same is true here. We point out what is really real is what God is doing for us and what the future is that he is establishing, but we come down again to thinking: What\u2019s real is what we do here and now, and what we touch is real, and who knows what is real in the future?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could it be that the future is more real than this world?  C.S. Lewis wrote a story about someone who gets on a bus for London, but it turns out the bus is really going to heaven, and when it gets there, it turns out that world is more real, more substantial, than this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact is we\u2019re asking about what is really real, and in Ephesians 1:13 it says: \u201cIn him you have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, and were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Revelation 21 it talks about God\u2019s kingdom to come as a new heaven and a new earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the status of people who have died? The New Testament has several images for this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the time Paul uses the image that people who have died are asleep in the Lord. That\u2019s one way of describing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second image or picture is the one in Revelation 6 about those who are \u201cunder the altar\u201d waiting for the end. \u201cUnder the altar\u201d means \u201cin the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A third image is found in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and it\u2019s the image of people being in the bosom of Abraham. That\u2019s an effort to say there is something real, something more going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fourth image, that of an immense transaction, is found in 2 Cor 5:21: \u201cFor our sake he made him to be sin, so that in him we might become the holiness of God.\u201d The Greek has the word \u201crighteousness,\u201d but it really means \u201cthe holiness of God.\u201d Because of that great exchange, we then have become saints in him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do those who have died and are in him have bodies?  Is that what it\u2019s like? The New Testament, in the great resurrection chapter, 1 Corinthians 15, it says that in this world we are in a physical body. In the future we will have a spiritual body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After his resurrection Jesus went through doors that were shut and locked, and it says they thought he was a ghost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in Luke 24 in the account of the Road to Emmaus, in which the two disciples meet a stranger on the road, and when they arrive in Emmaus, they beg him to continue talking and stop for supper with them, and in the breaking of the bread, Jesus reveals himself to them, and asks them to give him some food. It says that they gave him a piece of broiled fish and he ate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a kind of reality there. Jesus remains the incarnate one, the enfleshed one for all eternity. Not just for the thirty some years he lived on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who are in him are incarnate in him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the New Testament perhaps the most used image is the picture of the banquet, the great wedding feast. That was the greatest thing they knew, and what does it mean? Eating and drinking and singing and talking with each other. How can there be speaking without sound waves be heard?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most important thing to realize is that the Lord is doing something new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1 Cor 2:9: \u201cWhat no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in Ephesians 3:20 it says: \u201cNow to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think . . .\u201d  It blows your mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Luke 6:38 it says: \u201cGive, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, there is no way of calculating, knowing. It is beyond anything we can imagine. It\u2019s more real than this world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about these things?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we look at the hymnal\u2019s list of saints and their works, is this what it\u2019s about? Of course not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you read the writings of saints in the Roman Catholic tradition, the one thing that they have in common is they say: \u201cWe grew in the knowledge of sin. We became more aware that we weren\u2019t \u2018saints.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul points out that everyone forgiven in Christ is a saint. The hiddenness of what this means is how the two kingdoms work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the US Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue, where some of the most important and creative theology of the modern era was being done, the two teams of scholars took up this matter of saints. Some of the main questions they dealt with were: Are those who have died aware of us? Can they do something for us? Can we invoke them, and should we consider praying to them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luther writes some amazing words in 1537 in the Smalcald Articles 2:3 (BC <\/em>Tappert, 297; Kolb\/Wengert 305-06). In his trenchant way he sums it up: \u201cThe invocation of the saints is one of the abuses of the Antichrist.\u201d That\u2019s strong. He goes on to write about 30 lines. He asks: \u201cWhy are we troubling them by praying to them? We don\u2019t know what they are aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He writes very pointedly that as soon as it is no longer thought that we get an advantage from them, the cult of the saints will die away. And that\u2019s exactly what happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His real point is: Christ is enough. We pray to Christ. The Holy Spirit intercedes for us; we don\u2019t need to bother the saints or trouble them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, we come back to the big question: What\u2019s real?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re like Doubting Thomas: \u201cUnless I can touch, unless I can see with my own eyes. . .\u201d What\u2019s really real?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s about the resurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What it\u2019s about is that the future is his. Time is his. He makes everything new. What we\u2019re doing here, the years that we have on this earth, is not what it\u2019s really about, except in so far as we\u2019re in him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What it\u2019s really about is this new world coming, this new creation he has established through the cross and resurrection. Once we get that straight, it changes everything because we have a solid hope. The cross and resurrection\u2014that\u2019s what\u2019s really real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sermon for All Saints Sunday<\/p>\n

Today is another festival Sunday \u2013 All Saints Day.<\/p>\n

In the 2006 hymnal from Augsburg Publishing, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, at the front of the book, there is a list of saints and others to be remembered. For example, they have a special day (July 27) for Mary Magdalene and call her \u201can apostle.\u201d The word \u201capostle\u201d really means missionary. Does that title really apply to Mary Magdalene? If one is going to do that one should go to the 16th chapter of the Book of Romans where there is a woman named Junias. She was an apostle, a missionary in the normal sense of the term.<\/p>\n

In that list of saints and others to be remembered, they don\u2019t use the word, \u201csaint.\u201d The real reason for leaving out the term \u201csaint\u201d is like the trend of not giving grades so everyone is equal.<\/p>\n

Select here<\/a> to read more or select here<\/a> for a pdf version.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11013"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11018,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11013\/revisions\/11018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}