All Saints’ Day (Observed) 2019

Revelation 7:2-17

November 3, 2019

Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID

While is certainly has its strange moments, we hear of God’s revelation to St. John which shares a very comforting picture in the midst of the trials and tribulations in our lives.  As we look to the Church Militant - those saints still living and fighting the good fight on earth - and the Church Triumphant - those saints from whom their labors rest, as we just sang - we hear of time where they are one in the same.  All Christians are holy in Christ, sanctified by the Holy Spirit through the forgiveness of sins. In this Feast of All Saints, we remember and give thanks for everyone who has lived and died by faith in Christ. With the saints who have gone before us in the faith, and with all who believe and are baptized into Him, we are one body in Christ. And the countless number of God’s people from all over the earth and throughout time, come together with the angels praising God for our salvation.

What a sight it must have been. St. John brought by the angel to see a great heavenly host from every nation, tribe, people, and languages. Maybe even more spectacular though is that all these, along with the angelic host, are all gathered around the throne of God and the Lamb. The heavenly crowd is carrying palm branches.  This is the only other place outside of John 12:13 - Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem a week before He was to die and be raised from the dead - where palms are mentioned in the NT.  The picture that John paints for us in Revelation is one of all God’s saints participating in the same sort of things as Palm Sunday, a reception of the promised King, the Son of David, waving palm branches and singing a song of praise to one who has come to save us.  But this time, it’s very different.  We aren’t talking about Palm Sunday where Jesus rides on to die.  No, this morning, we hear of the Messiah coming to His people to live! 

People who stand before God, dressed in white robes, dressed in the purity and righteousness of Christ.  This fits in nicely with the Epistle reading.  1 John 3:3 “And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure.”  You, God’s saints, His holy ones.  You have been white washed.

What a wonderfully visual picture John paints for us today!  Every time I read this, and I’ve thought this way since I was pretty young, I always think of Tom Sawyer.  I don’t remember how old I was, but I was younger than 10, when I first read this book by Mark Twain.  And in my book was a picture of Tom Sawyer after he had gotten in trouble, whitewashing a fence.  I seriously dreaded that my parents were going to make me do this to our fence when I got in trouble.

It wasn’t until I grew older that I realized I didn’t have to worry about whitewashing.  Because I’m not Tom Sawyer.  I’m the fence. Since salvation is by grace alone, as we heard about last Sunday particularly during our Reformation Service, it’s impossible for a person to wash himself to achieve the forgiveness of sins.  God alone can turn scarlet sins to white by scarlet blood.  Christ white washes you, using His own blood as staining a wooden cross as paint.  That blood He then takes and uses to wash you white and clean and pure from all your sins.  Revelation 7:13-14 “¹³ Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?’”  ¹⁴ I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.”  And he said to me, ‘These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.  They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” 

John is assured that God Himself will dwell with His saints who have gone through the tribulation in the same way that Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us.  The Lamb of God will be the Shepherd – one like the sheep in the flock will also be like God.  Fully man and fully God. He will guide them to springs of living water remind us of Jesus’ own words that He is the water of life and the shepherd that lays his life down for His sheep.  This also sounds a lot like Psalm 23, those comforting words we often hear at funerals, to which John adds in Revelation that “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

On that day, that great Day of the LORD, as the Father sent the Shepherd to the earth to gather His people (John 10:14-18, 2:27-30), now the Shepherd, as the victorious Lamb, presents the flock to His heavenly Father, clean and pure, white washed in divine blood. The angels in heaven praise God and the Lamb for the salvation of human beings.  The redemption of God’s people in Christ is the most important action since His creation of all life.

As we wait for that final day, we live today encouraged despite the fears and horrors in your life and the world, and in view of the tribulations yet to come.  God will protect His people as they carry out the mission of the Lord here on earth.  He will not forsake us, not permit us to lose hope and faith in Him.  And He promises your citizenship as part of the church triumphant.  This is our end, you future, your life – eternal glory of God with all the faithful saints of God, white-washed in the blood in the Lamb.