All Saints Day Sermon

All Saints Day has this great prayer: “Almighty and everlasting God, You knit together Your faithful people of all times and places into one holy communion, the mystical body of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Grant us so to follow Your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living that, together with them, we may come to the unspeakable joys You have prepared for those who love You; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.” The text starts with this prayer, the assertion that God has knit us together into a great communion of all who live in Christ. 

Pastor Jon also unpacks Revelation 7:2-17 for us. The apostle John sees the people of God twice in this section of Revelation. First we have the people described as Israel enumerated. John’s picture of the people in verses 2-8 seem to be a picture of the Church militant. That is contrasted with the next picture where the people are not numbered, but they are simply called innumerable. This is not a picture of the church militant but the church at rest, the church in heaven. 

Pastor Jon concludes the sermon by focusing on a picture of a painting by the famous artist of the Reformation, Lucas Cranach: https://www.wikiart.org/en/lucas-cranach-the-elder/the-last-supper-1547. Reflecting on the prayer, Revelation text and the painting, we, who are grieving in the face of this world’s burdens, are invited to be comforted by being united with all God’s people in this Holy Supper.