All Saints’ Day
Revelation 6:15-17, 7: 9-17; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12
I.
The whole point of All Saints’ Day is to talk about the vindication and the triumph of the Church of God: the vindication and the triumph of the saints.
In order to get to this place of triumph, to this place of vindication, we have to deal with a question that vexes most of us. Where does evil come from?
Where does it come from, and moreover, what possible purpose does evil serve?
We’re on the horns of a dilemma here. If we say we believe in God, and then we say that God allows evil to happen, then that would seem to make God into a monster.
If God does nothing to stop evil, does that make God weak or indifferent? Is God up against a power, a force, a dark side, or a devil that He cannot beat?
The dilemma is this: either we can have a monster god or a weakling god, but neither god is a god worth believing in.
II.
The entire Bible is a story about how evil is overcome. It’s talking about a coming reversal, an unwinding, an undoing of evil. The technical word for this genre is theodicy, a vindication of God’s goodness.
The Bible’s principle message, which we hear in today’s Gospel, is that what the world takes away, the kingdom of God restores.
If we look at the reading today from Revelation, we meet John. St. John the Divine, John the Seer. John is having a vision. He’s in the middle of a vision and we’ve joined him in the sixth and seventh chapters of this vision.
John sees the saints in heaven, this white-clad multitude from every race and tribe, and he doesn’t recognize them.
John doesn’t know who he’s seeing, so the person who is guiding John, this elder, explains to John what he’s seeing. Revelation 7:13-14:
“Then one of the elders addressed me saying, ‘Who are these robed in white, and where have they come from?’”
John’s reply is:
“Sir, you are the one who knows.”
The elder replies:
“These are they who have come out of the great ordeal. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
White represents righteousness and purity, which is symbolized by the blood of the Lamb.
Blood on a white garment should stain it red. But this is just the opposite: the righteous blood of Jesus stains the saints’ garments pure, it stains them white.
This “stain of purity” is actually the answer to a question that’s raised in Revelation 6 which depicts a scene in which high and low, rich and poor, slave and free, are all in a panic.
They know a great day of judgment is upon them and they’re afraid. They ask: “Where can we go to escape this judgment? Who will hide us? How can we hide?”
So, they call upon the very rocks. They dive under the very rocks to hide from this wrath that is to come.
They ask the question:
“Who can stand? Who can stand during this time of judgment?”
The answer is what we just read from Revelation 7: “These you see in white. These you see robed in white, cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, these are the ones who can stand. These are the ones who have come out of a great ordeal, a great time of trouble, a great time of evil.”
When Revelation was written the “great ordeal” was the persecution of the Church by the Roman Empire, but over the past 2,000 years the Church has experienced many more ordeals, and, if you ask me, the Church is poised to enter a new ordeal soon.
But we don’t have to limit the scope of this passage to persecution in the life of the Church. The passage can speak a word of comfort to the troubles that you experience in your own life in the here and now.
John is ignorant of God’s will, which is why he can’t answer the elder’s question.
It’s why he doesn’t know who these people in white are.
He’s ignorant of God’s will and the way in which God makes saints.
God makes saints through a process of reversal.
It has to be explained to John that the saints are survivors. The saints are survivors of many setbacks and losses.
The point here is that all of us have experienced setbacks and losses. All of us are being made saints through this process of reversal. All of us are being made saints through our troubles.
In Matthew 5:11-12 we read from the Beatitudes:
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you…. Blessed are the poor in spirit…. Blessed are those who mourn…. Blessed are the meek….”
This is trouble, described. These are troubling conditions to bear. Yet look at how they are each reversed:
“Blessed are you when people revile you, your reward is great in heaven. Blessed are you, the poor in spirit. Yours is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you who mourn. You will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for you will inherit the earth.”
Here, in Jesus’ words, is the promise of reversal.
Our job as Christians, as faithful believers, is to accept our troubles and to live in anticipation of that great reversal.
III.
Now I can think of at least two objections to this.
The first is that this is pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die thinking. “It’ll all be fine in heaven… in the kingdom of heaven, once you get to heaven, … there’s glory… So just deal with it now, suck it up.”
The problem with that is, of course, that the kingdom of heaven is in heaven, not here on earth. It’s in the future, not now.
What about the here and now? Where is comfort for the widow? Where is comfort for the child who has lost her father? Where is comfort and vindication for the man who has lost his dignity and his pride, because he’s lost his way of life, his job? Where is comfort for the prisoner? Where is comfort and vindication for the victim?
The second objection is the, “Why me, God?” objection. “Why would God do this to me? What kind of God would do this? How is this love?”
What this tells me is that all of us here have very real and very unmet needs for comfort, vindication, and even understanding.
Comfort and vindication come, as we might expect, from being consoled, from getting even. But what about understanding? Where does that come from?
Here’s the wisdom, and here’s the understanding that is on display in these readings and that all the saints have understood throughout the ages of the Church: God works by way of a process of reversal.
You see, once God commits to something, He doesn’t back away from it. God is good, and God has made all things good, which means He can’t very well make us un-good!
Once God has given us His blessing, He can’t remove it. Instead, He needs to find a way to cure the sin, to overcome the evil.
IV.
Today’s reading from Revelation shows us that the cure for sin, and the cure for evil, is directly linked to the cross, which is probably the most bloody and real thing ever to happen.
Don’t say that God can’t understand grief when He gave up His own Son for our sake.
A great reversal is underway, one that will comfort us and vindicate us fully in the fulness of time.
But the knowledge, the wisdom that I’m talking about, the knowledge of this can comfort us, even now.
What this world takes away the kingdom of God restores.
This is Christian wisdom.
Revelation 7:17:
“The Lamb will be their shepherd.”
You see, this new creation that we are already a part of is an inversion of the old, where everything about this world is reversed: where the last are first and sheep are shepherds.
Did you notice that? A lamb is the shepherd.
This kingdom begins now, or it began 2,000 years ago, but it begins for you the moment you begin to believe this.
The moment you begin to understand it began with the cross — where the death of one man was the beginning of new life for many — there and then begins your great reversal.
V.
Once we understand that the great reversal is already underway, we can find our vindication in Jesus’ resurrection, which is, after all, our resurrection.
I think too many Christians think that resurrection is just something that we celebrate in the spring on Easter, and that it only happened to this one man named Jesus.
We tend to hold up Jesus as this person to look at. We parade Him around, but we don’t necessarily fully grasp that everything that happened to Him will happen to us.
The suffering, the betrayal, yes, that happened to Him and it has also happened to us.
But now comes the comfort and the vindication.
The rising to newness of life.
The reversal of His death is the reversal of our death. His Ascension into heaven, where He is exalted in glory at the right hand of God the Father, is also where we are going.
But still, why do the bad things have to happen, and, back of their happening, why does God allow them?
Ask yourself this question. Who else would you rather trouble come from? Who else would you rather have trouble come from? Someone who loves you or someone who hates you?
The Bible is nothing if not a true story. Evil happens. We know it does.
Ours is not a religion of fairytales or platitudes. Ours is a religion, ours is a faith that looks evil square in the eyes and deals with it.
I say it’s better to have a God who deals with evil, who reverses it, than to engage in wishful and magical thinking.
Don’t escape there, into that place of wishful and magical thinking. Don’t blame God for not giving you a get out of jail free card.
You know, all of us know, that actions have consequences. You know that the wages of sin is death.
But you have a God, you have a Savior who overcame death. You have a God, you have a Savior who overcame the grave, and even hell, to make you worthy to stand.
This is the reversal. This is how you become a saint.
Now, we can’t see that fully yet, but the saints who have gone before us can. And that is why we celebrate them.
You can participate in this simply by giving thanks. You stand before God in a posture of thanksgiving, in a posture of giving thanks for what He has done, for what He is doing.
That is your hope. There is your comfort. This is your vindication, even now. Amen.
Preached on October 29, 2023 at St. Peter’s Lithgow, Millbrook, New York.
Our Troubles Make Us Saints