Texts: Isaiah 25. 6-9; Revelation 21. 1-6a; Mark 10. 32-44
This morning we are observing the feast of All Saints. Each year All Saints Day falls on November 1st (and – as an aside – has also been known through the centuries as All Hallows Day … thus the other holiday that has been celebrated in recent days –All Hallows Eve … or Halloween.) Historically, All Saints Day began as a commemoration of the martyrs who died for their Christian faith. But over the years it has evolved into a day when we honour and remember ALL THE SAINTS – those who – in death – have joined the Church Triumphant, as well as the faithful saints of the present who serve Jesus Christ.
Today all three readings talk about death; and the pain that death creates for those still alive, the family and friends that mourn their loss. But the great emphasis is upon life and the living. The same, I think, is true on All Saints’ Sunday. All Saints Sunday is a time to remember those who have died. We remember the dead, but through and in our acts of memorial, we also come to see and value life anew.
Thus today, on this Feast of All Saints, we commemorate all the Saints of all countries and of all centuries and of all backgrounds. We recall Saints of all ages, of all nationalities, men, women and children, the poor and the rich, the old and the young, the healthy and the sick. They all confessed the same Faith in the Holy Trinity.
Our Lord Jesus said in His sermon on the mount:
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
In sorrow or mourning, we also rejoice. We rejoice in the good memories we treasure of our loved ones, and we rejoice especially in knowing that they are no longer bound by the limitations of this broken world. They have entered eternal life with the Lord, and that is something to celebrate. Even more than this, we celebrate the fact that God is doing a new thing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the promise of resurrection extended to all who believe in him.
John was a very old man when he was exiled to the island of Patmos. He had outlived most of the other disciples. He had seen the church under his care flourish, and then scatter under the pressure of persecution. It was this persecution that concerned John. He knew that suffering can give rise to doubts, and he knew that some believers had already given up hope. John wrote to these Christians, suffering for their faith, to encourage them to endure.
In the book of Revelation, John pulls open the curtain of heaven and gives us a vision of what is happening in the heavenly realm, in a cosmic battle between God and Satan. The turf they are fighting over is your soul, and mine. As we read, we are given a glimpse of that battle. It is a battle that God will ultimately win. John uses the term overcome extensively throughout this letter to the churches. God will overcome Satan. We can overcome the hardships that come with a life of faith, and there is no greater hardship for us to endure than the hardship of facing death.
In verse-4 of Rev. 21 John writes- He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more,for the first things have passed away.’
This vision from Revelation twice uses the word “pass away.”
It is used for the passing away of a world (21:1) and then for the passing away of all the first or former things (21:4). “Pass away” is a word that in our ordinary speech means death. Last year in the month of September when my Father died, I received many phone calls and messages saying that – we came to know your father passed away.
We often think of the term “pass away” in connection with death. But here, in the vision that was given to John on the island of Patmos, it is the first heaven and earth that have passed away. Here, the term doesn’t speak so much of death, as it points us to eternal life. In Revelation, death itself passes away. Death will be no more. Mourning and pain and sorrow will be no more. The old order of things must pass away to make room for the new heaven and the new earth.
What is surprising is that in Revelation the word has the opposite sense. We assume that things “pass away” when death comes, but in Revelation things “pass away” when death goes away. The first heaven and earth that pass away (21:1) constitute the world in which death was operative. To take death out of the picture is to bring about a new world.
The passage we have read from Isaiah says in verse-8 ‘God will swallow up death for ever’. It tell us that the newly restored age cannot be fully established until every threatening force is removed. This text strongly asserts that God will destroy the last enemy, i.e., death, forever
Our Gospel passage this Morning/evening gives us the glimpse of death defeated. Dead man comes walking from the tomb at the simple command of Jesus: “Come out.” This death for Lazarus is defeated. He will need to clean up and take off the grave clothes, but Lazarus gets another chance at life. However, death is not forever defeated for Lazarus. This is not the resurrection of Jesus; it is the temporary recovery from death for Lazarus.
Dear Friends:-
Death is real for those whom God has created. Yet in Christ, there is also the promise of resurrection–and resurrection is a new act of creation. Resurrection is the promise of a new existence, a transformed existence. This is also what John envisions for the world itself. Death affects all of us and the world to which we belong. Yet in his sovereign will to redeem, God holds out the promise of making us and our world new.
The new creation is marked, in part, by an absence of powers that oppose God and diminish life. In John’s visions, he tells of the final defeat of evil and the liberation of earth and humanity from the forces that have held it captive. The resurrection of all the dead brings an end to death itself (20:14). Therefore, in the new creation there is an absence of death, mourning, crying, and pain–for all those marks of the former, fallen world have passed away (21:1, 4). At the same time, the new creation is characterized by the presence of the God who gives life. A voice from the throne declares that God’s dwelling will be “with humankind”; he will dwell “with them,” and “God himself will be with them” (21:3).
It may surprise you to learn that there is nothing in the Book of Revelation about us going up to heaven. Revelation never mentions anything about a Rapture. Those ideas come from a completely different place in the Bible. The time doesn’t permit us to discuss that but you can look for yourself in First Thessalonians 4. 13-18 Paul writes about the rapture.
But in John’s vision, the final hope is not that we go to heaven when we die. Salvation is not us going to God, but God coming to us. … Salvation is found only in God.”
Salvation isn’t going to heaven. Salvation is living with God.
What a comfort it is to know that God is present with us, and plans to be with us throughout all eternity, that our whole existence is framed by the presence of God. And God will wipe away every tear. Not only the tears we shed now, but every tear ever shed, for every pain ever felt, throughout the entire history of humankind, will be erased. Not only the tears we weep, but the tears we cause, will be gone.
This is the hope of resurrection. The old order of things has passed away. God makes everything new. I give you a new commandment, that you love one another, Jesus tells his disciples, who live in close fellowship with him. Behold, I make all things new, the risen Lord tells us.
On this All Saints’ Sunday, we continue to celebrate the mystery of Jesus’ resurrection. Resurrection promises that we will be the same, but totally different. Verse 5 says that everything will be made new, not that everything will be replaced by new and different things.
God is faithful (verse 5b), and creation is not being abandoned, but it is being transformed. The former things, the evils that cause pain and suffering in our current world, those will be gone forever. Rebellion against God, oppression, deceit and sin – all that is gone, and gone for good.
Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen