Community Church Sermons
November 4, 2007
All
Saints Sunday
Luke 6:20-23a
Listen to this Sermon!
The Christian Church has, from the beginning, paid
humble respect to those who have given up their lives for the sake of the
Gospel. The journey from the Cross - where Jesus died - to this present place
and time contains countless stories of heroic women, men and even children who
kept the faith through all the seasons of life and even in the face of death.
Not only do we number among these saints the likes of Mary and Peter and
Magdalene and Paul and John and Priscilla and all the disciples, but also those
who came after them, most of whose names are unknown to us, but are known to
God. And then, of course, there are the saints of our memory – our mothers and
fathers and children and grandparents and friends and neighbors and fellow
church members who have gone before us into the presence of God.
It was some time in the 4th century that
the Church decided to set a feast day to honor the saints and, about a hundred
years later, the date for All Saints Day was finally fixed on November 1st. In our tradition, the Communion Sunday
following All Saints Day is very special as we remember the saints of our lives
and commune with them at the Table of the Lord.
My father, Martin Conrad Singley, Jr., died on the
day after All Saints in 1973 – 34 years ago. I always experience a deep reunion
of sorts with my dad when we come to the Communion table on this Sunday, and
since my mother’s passing almost two years ago, I can visualize them now
walking hand-in-hand down the aisle to gather with me and you and all the saints
at the Table.
Who are some of the dear ones you see coming
down the aisle today? Who are the saints of your life?
The great hymn “For All The Saints” is the
song we sing for them today:
For all
the saints, who from their labours rest,
Who
Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy
Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia,
Alleluia!
O blest
communion, fellowship divine!
We
feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
All are
one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia,
Alleluia!
From
earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through
gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
And
singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia,
Alleluia!
Can you see beyond the obvious today? Can you peek
behind the thin veil that separates us from eternity? Can you see their faces,
and hear their voices among us?
Can you see the victory that has been won for them?
I will make no bones about the fact that one of my
favorite hymns is “For All The Saints” even as hard as it is to sing.
And that my least favorite Christian song of the modern period – as easy as it
is to sing - is, “I Can Only Imagine” by Mercy Me. I will grant you that
“I Can Only Imagine” has been a great crossover hit, and that I am
probably the only person in the world who hates the song. But I have my
reasons.
One of them is that I object to the imagination that
cannot see heaven as anything more than a church service that never gets over.
YOU may want to spend eternity in worship, but for people like Bob and Tim and
Rhonda and me who punch the clock every Sunday, Wednesday and soon-to-come
Saturday, that’s OVERTIME! And I suspect that those of you who find yourselves
checking your watch during our services just might find it a little tedious to
sit through a service that runs over by, say…TEN MILLION YEARS!
No, I believe that heaven is much like earth, and
that life beyond the grave is just that – LIFE! And that the songs of praise we
sing in heaven are songs that arise out of our LIVING! No, I don’t want to go
to church for the rest of time, but I would like to go fishing with Jesus, and
hiking in the mountains, and share with him all the things he loved to do when
he was among us. I’d like to try that walking on water thing, and find out if I
could – like Jesus – be a healer to those who come to heaven broken. I’d love
to see how stars are made, and maybe to give God a hand in creating the first
sunrise of a brand new planet. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
See, I think the problem we have with thinking about
heaven is a lack of perspective. We can only speculate about the details of
heaven because none of us has ever been there before. Peering FORWARD into the
future is pure imagination.
It would be far better to look BACK.
That’s where the saints come in. You see, the song
of praise they lift up is for the victory God gave them over the challenges
that life brought their way – over poverty, injustice, cancer, murder, suicide,
birth defect, automobile accident, untimely death.
Think of the saints of your life as they join us at
the Table today. They left us – many of them -
in moments of great tragedy and sadness. You and I can still feel the
emptiness and pain of their loss. And yet here they come this morning, marching
down the aisle to the Table of the Lord, singing songs of great praise and joy
for God has given them victory!
The saints are a testimony to the faithfulness of
God. Cancer did not win. Poverty did not prevail. Injustice was not permanent.
Death was not the end. The gracious hand of God our Savior has overcome all of
the sad and tragic circumstances that touched the saints’ lives on earth!
This is the promise of the Gospel!
“Blessed
are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who
hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you
will laugh….”
Looking back, the saints are able to see that the
promises were kept.
So rather than our looking ahead and speculating
about what heaven will be like, it would be much better if we were to simply
stand with the saints today and join them in looking BACK. If we were to do
that, perhaps we would see what they see – the loving hand of God at work,
keeping his promises, and redeeming every circumstance of our lives.
I think the saints would have laughed at me, when I
was 10 or 11 years old and thought my life was over. My best friend Dennis
Astrella and I had decided to get into the field of modern rocketry so we went
downtown to Henry’s Hobby Shop and bought a model rocket, along with some solid
fuel rocket motor cells. We put the rocket together, gathered up a makeshift
launching pad, a battery and some wires, and went up into the big empty field
behind the new high school. There, we assembled our own version of Cape
Canaveral, put the rocket on the pad, connected the wires, had a countdown –
3-2-1 – and WOOOOOSH – off the rocket soared into the heavens, leaving a thick
plume of white smoke behind. It was awesome!
And it was hot! REALLY hot, we discovered! We had
set the field on fire! And there was just enough of a breeze that we couldn’t
put the flames out. The blaze took off, racing toward the nearby subdivision.
And we took off, too – running home as fast as our little legs could carry us.
I ran right upstairs into my bedroom, and got under the covers. In the
distance, I could hear the wail of sirens. I stayed there under the covers for
the next three years! Or so it seemed. All I knew then was that my life was
over – caput – at 10 years of age.
Or so I thought. Have there been times when YOU
thought tomorrow would never come? There have been many such times in my life,
and yet here I am. There you are! We somehow made it through.
Do you know why?
“Blessed
are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you who hunger
now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall
laugh…”
Human life has tremendous resiliency, and it does
because God loves us and has promised to never abandon us. Others may forsake
us and flee, and we may even give up on ourselves. But God never gives up on
his children. God is faithful and true!
And that’s the message the saints proclaim as they
stream into the sanctuary and gather with us about the table.
Looking back, they rejoice that there were no real
endings in life – no tragedies that remained tragedies forever, no failures
that stayed failures, no lack that remain unfulfilled.
God kept his word.
And so listen to the saints today as you consider
your life. Yes, there are challenges and sorrows and many broken things. Your
life is your life, and life throws a lot of difficulty our way.
But we are not left to face life alone. God loves
us. God is with us. God will give us victory!
And as we come together at the table today, listen
to the saints, telling us it is so!