Grace mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text today is the entire first reading from the book of Revelation.
Dear friends in Christ: It's been four years since my grandfather passed away. The ornery man, who had saved every piece of scrap wood for the last 50 years, who had 35 hammers in the barn sitting in a bucket was gone. No longer would there be IBP Root beer in glass bottles waiting for us. No longer would he tell stories of the days when he was a traveling salesman for General Mills. He had suffered in his last years from ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. And as he got weaker, this sinful world took its toll on him, his hands were weaker, the stories more difficult to understand. And finally, he was at rest, Christ brought him to his eternal home. The funeral had come, and my loved one no longer would be around this veil of tears, instead his body awaited the resurrection of the dead, while his soul rested with Jesus in heaven.
How many of us have lost a loved one like this? How many of us have loved ones who have gone before us, and now are saints before the throne of God? I suspect most of us have. Today we celebrate All Saints Day, a day where we remember those who have gone before us, knowing that
ONE DAY WE TOO WILL BE BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD WITH THEM, AT PEACE, AT REST WITH JESUS.
That is what St. John describes in our text today. He sees a picture of eternity, a picture of the countless believers in Jesus who are standing before the throne of God. You are there, I am there. My grandfather is there, and so are all your relatives who went before in the faith. And the image that St. John describes is one of triumph, one of eternity, one apart from sin.
But here on Earth, we have trouble seeing this heavenly tranquility. Here on Earth, our text says that we are in the great tribulation, or the great suffering. Here on earth we suffer because here on earth we deal daily with sin, death and the power of the devil. Here on earth, things are not perfect as they are in heaven. Here on earth, people get hurt, people suffer and people die.
And we experience that in our lives, don't we. Suffering and death. They seem to be everywhere we look. We see on the TV, pictures of people in the country of Haiti suffering still not recovered from an earthquake that devastated their land almost a year ago. We see pictures of volcanoes erupting, and destroying entire towns. We see pictures of floods where the water rises and washes away people's entire houses. We face drought, early snows, and water destroying crops. There are tornados and hurricanes. Fires destroy, and winds blow away. Here on earth we are never really safe from the tribulation of a sinful world.
And at times that Sin can even strike us closer than just those natural disasters. At times there are even more serious tribulation and suffering. Suffering as we here on earth face death and dying. How many of us have lost a loved one unexpectedly? Maybe in a divorce, or perhaps in a car accident. Maybe, in a sickness like cancer or perhaps like me through Lou Gherig's disease or Alzheimer's. Maybe, we have lost a loved one to miscarriage or still birth. Or even if all of these fail, we know we have lost a loved one to death even just through old age. Maybe these people have been mothers, or brothers, or fathers or sisters. Perhaps it is your husband or your wife or a good friend that is gone. Each of us have felt this loss in a different way.
And when that loved one is gone, we suffer, because we miss that person. We miss the company that they provided to us. We miss their little quirks and their same old jokes and stories that they always told. We miss getting or giving them a hug or a kiss. We miss sharing the events of our day or the support they give us on a difficult day.
It is our sin that causes this loss in our lives. It is our sin that leaves us alone and by ourselves especially during the holidays that are coming up. Scripture is clear, the wages of sin is death, and furthermore that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And because we all have sinned, it follows that we will all experience death at some point. Death is not our friend, death is not a part of God's original plan. It is a terrible invasion of the work of the devil.
Even so, as Christians, we know that death has no power over us. As Christians, we know that in the end, death cannot harm us. For we have already died in and with Jesus. Jesus himself says in the Gospel of John, "Whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die." For St. Paul says "Did you not know that when you were baptized, you were baptized into the death of Jesus, and if you have died with him, you have also been raised with him."
Even our text says the same thing as it speaks about you in heaven. "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb." In baptism you were brought out of the tribulation and into eternity with God. In Baptism, you were completely and totally covered with the blood of Jesus, the blood of the lamb who takes away the sin of the world. The very blood that poured out from the hands, and side of Jesus Christ on the cross, now washes you, and makes you holy. And that blood declares that we no longer are subject to the trials and temptations of this world, but rather, we are citizens of heaven.
As I said earlier, it is us that St. John sees in the text; Us in our eternal, sin free life, us in heaven. For we are they who will one day come out of the great tribulation, having washed our robes in the blood of Jesus in our baptisms. Therefore, our text says, we will be before the throne of God and serving him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over us. Never again will we hunger; never again will we thirst. The sun will not beat upon us, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be our shepherd; he will lead us to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from our eyes."
Through Jesus, this is God's promise to us. Eternity in heaven with all the other saints, partaking in the heavenly banquet that has no end. In fact, we already today partake in that glorious meal. As we gather around the altar and partake in the very body and blood of Jesus given for you, for the forgiveness of all you sin. That is why in our communion liturgy we say, "With angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven" before the Lord's Supper. Every time we come to the altar rail, we partake with those who have gone before us in the faith, and one day, we will partake with those who come after us.
In Jesus, we are made whole. In Jesus we have life. In Jesus, we have been made a holy saint, and we have entered into the kingdom of heaven. One day, I will be there along side my grandfather, and all the other saints who have gone before us. I will join them, as our text says, in the forgiveness of Jesus is worshipping God for eternity. For Salvation belongs to our God, and especially to the lamb, Jesus Christ. To him alone, be all glory. Amen.
