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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even here in the Bible belt, people in general seem to have less and less regard for Christians and Christianity. Sure, we may be relatively “safe” within our immediate families, our Lutheran congregations, our non-denominational schools, and maybe even some of our workplaces, but outside of those we face reviling, persecution, and all kinds of evil uttered against us falsely on account of Jesus. To that reality, we hear Jesus, in the Gospel Reading read moments ago, say, “Rejoice and be glad”. To all those being persecuted, Jesus paradoxically says, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you”—and, we might add, so they persecuted the martyrs and confessors, all the other blessed saints, who were before us. On this observance of All Saints’ Day, we consider the Gospel Reading under the theme “Rejoice And Be Glad”.
For more than one-thousand years the Church on or near November First has commemorated all saints, all those who have departed in the faith, martyrs and confessors, and, for at least a good chunk of that time, the festival’s Gospel Reading has been the opening verses of Jesus’s so‑called “Sermon on the Mount”. To those who had already learned some things from Him, with others from the large crowds across the region listening in, Jesus solemnly and impressively spoke these “Beatitudes”, or “declarations of blessedness”. Each indicates both who is blessed and how they are blessed. After the last Beatitude—but connected with it (and really a part of it)—is Jesus’s “command” for us to “Rejoice and be glad”.
Rejoice and be glad. Rejoice and be glad that we are persecuted? Is Jesus some kind of sadist? Is He crazy? He does not want us just to clench our jaw and without emotion accept and endure persecution, but He wants us to find in the persecution reason to rejoice and be glad! Such a reaction to persecution on Jesus’s account does not come naturally to us fallen people. Consider how we complain and are sad over all sorts of lesser things in our everyday lives! A sibling got better Halloween candy. We got scheduled for extra work or maybe we got laid off. Someone we love or maybe we ourselves are declining in health. We certainly do not want anything more in our lives that we consider bad, much less reviling, persecution, and all kinds of evil uttered against us falsely on account of Jesus. Yet, Jesus seems to describe such persecution as a mark or testimony that we are Christians. What does not wanting to have such a mark say about whether or not we really want to be Christians?
The Holy Spirit can and does use such words of our Lord to lead us to repentance. We all need to repent, for we all sin. If we do not sin by failing to rejoice and be glad under persecution, then we sin in some other way. The Holy Spirit leads us to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and to want to do better than keep sinning. In some sense, such repentance is at least a part of our being poor in spirit, mourning, being meek, and hungering and thirsting for righteousness. And, we know from the Gospel Reading that the poor in spirit are blessed with the Kingdom of Heaven, that those who mourn are blessed with comfort, that the meek are blessed with the earth as an inheritance, and that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed with the satisfaction of that hunger and thirst for righteousness. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. God forgives our sin of failing to rejoice and be glad under persecution or whatever our sin might be. God forgives all our sin. God forgives all our sin not because of what we do (for example, not because we are merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, or persecuted), but God forgives all our sin because of what Jesus did. Especially in St. Matthew’s account, one’s being blessed is always associated with God’s action in Jesus.
Just before the “Sermon on the Mount”, the divinely‑inspired St. Matthew had presented Jesus as the Revealer, the Redeemer, the Christ, and the only God. And, even in these opening words of the Sermon, Jesus in some sense continues to describe Himself. Jesus humbled Himself to death on a cross. Jesus mourned over those who rejected Him. Jesus was the meek Messiah Who entered Jerusalem to die. Jesus desired to accomplish God’s righteousness. He mercifully forgives sins. He is pure inwardly. He is the peacemaker above all peacemakers. And He was persecuted for rightesouness’ sake, killed by the Jewish leadership, like so many prophets before Him. When we believe in Jesus’s death and resurrection for us as individuals, then God forgives our sin, declares and so makes us righteous. The Words of His Gospel are His power for salvation. They bring into existence the very things they describe. They make us holy, saints. The Words of His Gospel give us the Kingdom of Heaven as a possession already now, even if our full realization of that Kingdom and its blessings is still to come at some point in the future.
In the meantime, as we wait for our full realization of the Kingdom of Heaven and all its blessings, we are persecuted on account of Jesus and His righteousness. Especially given our subjective emotional response to that persecution, God’s Word and Sacraments are our objective comfort. In today’s Epistle Reading (1 John 3:1-3), St. John reminds us that the Father has loved us so much that we are called children of God, and we know for sure that we are made God’s children at the Baptismal Font. There, water and God’s Word combine to work forgiveness of sin, deliver from death and the devil, and give eternal salvation. There we are sealed with the sign of the cross, the Lamb’s Name is put upon our forehead, and so we know that we will see God (Revelation 22:4). Those who are baptized hunger and thirst for righteousness, and they recall the words of Jesus, the Bread of Life, that whoever comes to Him, whoever eats His body and drinks His blood—as we do in, with, and under bread and wine—will certainly not hunger or thirst (John 6:35). Baptized and satisfied here at this altar and its rail, we do not take persecution as signs that we are cut off from God, for if He wanted to cut us off, He would not have given us the Words of His Gospel, baptized us, individually absolved us, and satisfied us with the Holy Supper.
Especially in the Holy Supper we have communion with Christ and so with the prophets and with all those who have gone before us in the faith, martyrs and confessors alike, including our member Lee Eilers, who transferred from our congregation to the Church Triumphant since the last All Saints’ Day. They now may have a somewhat fuller appreciation of the Kingdom of Heaven, but that Kingdom is our possession already now. When Jesus comes again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, then they and we, in resurrected bodies and souls, will have the fullest appreciation of the Kingdom of Heaven. Then we will take part in that heavenly worship revealed to St. John in the vision read as today’s First Reading (Revelation 7:9-17). Then, we will be fully comforted, inherit the earth, be fully satisfied, receive mercy, see God, and be called sons of God. Then and there we will have the “great reward” Jesus mentioned in the Gospel Reading, and looking forward to that reward helps us get through the persecution we face here and now. Like the apostles when they were beaten by Jewish leaders, we can rejoice that we are counted worthy to suffer dishonor on account of God’s Name (Acts 5:41-42). Rejoice and be glad! The Church must be persecuted, and such persecution will only increase as the end nears, but God enables us to rejoice and are glad—not as every-day emotions but as joy and exultation in light of eternal salvation. Yet, even The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther once admitted that he had yet to learn to “Rejoice and be glad” as he should, sometimes giving in to the devil’s temptation not to be cheerful (AE 54:96). When we also so fail, as we will, we, like him, with repentance and faith, daily live in the forgiveness of sins.
Thus, the apostles, Dr. Luther, and all the departed saints are for us, as today’s Collect says, examples of virtuous and godly living. In that Collect we also indeed pray that with them we, who rejoice and are glad now, will come to the unspeakable joys He has prepared for us. Then, we and they will fully understand and say, “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +