All Saints Day 2008 - Revelation 7:9-17

All Saints Day is important to me. It is one of my favorite church holidays, not because it is happy, but because it is good. And I know it is good because I’ve been there. I’ve seen my share of death in too few years. I’ve said goodbye to too many people. Friends, I know what it is to cry. I know what it is to be unable to focus because thoughts of a loved one are constantly on your mind. I know what it is to hear a song, see a movie, visit a location, even just hear a word, and images, memories, replay in your mind. So why is it that I love a holiday that reminds me of those who are no longer here? All Saints and All Souls Day is a time to honor those who have gone before us. It is a time to remember the saints in my own life and to remember the many things they taught me. And I love God’s promise of life in his presence that we are reminded of today.

A little over three years ago, I moved to North Carolina to start school at Duke. The day before I moved, one of my friends, Alyssa, from the church in Santa Barbara, had a seizure and ended up in ICU. She was vibrant, a runner, vocalist, and actress. She was on one of our praise bands, and only two weeks earlier, she had had a conversation with pastor Doug about wanting to lead people into worship. She wanted to help others worship God with the same love and passion she had. Alyssa was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. She lived the next 10 ½ months with grace, joy, and laughter before passing into the loving arms of Jesus on July 4^th, 2006.

I tell you Alyssa’s story not because she is unique. I know many of you could share similar stories. I tell you about Alyssa because you need to know a little about her story to understand the words Doug shared at her Celebration of Life service. Doug told the story of Alyssa asking to lead worship at the church. And he told us that now, since Alyssa had passed into the arms of Jesus, she got to fulfill that desire. As Alyssa worshipped around God’s throne, she got to lead all of us into worship. Because of her life, we were all gathered in one room, to worship God, remember his faithfulness, and celebrate the gift he had given to us all in Alyssa.

Alyssa joined the great crowd of saints who worship around the throne. That crowd that we read about in Revelation. There is a multitude no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language. They are dressed in white, the same color that Revelation describes Jesus as wearing, because they have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. And they are all worshipping together. The angel tells John that this crowd has come out of the great tribulation. They serve God day and night. And here is the part I really love, “Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat. For the lamb at the center before the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

These saints have seen pain on earth. They have hungered and thirsted and cried. At times in the Roman world, Christians were persecuted for their faith. They were fed to the beasts in the coliseums. They were told to worship the emperor instead of Jesus, or alongside Jesus. They were told to sacrifice to other gods. And even when things were peaceful, they struggled to survive. They worked hard to have food from day to day. They battled all variety of illnesses. And they saw death, from life in this world and at the hands of the Roman authorities.

But John isn’t worried about the death of the saints. He sees exactly where the saints live – gathered around the throne of God. Death is not the end for God’s saints. They are resurrected. As Paul tells us, because Jesus was resurrected from the dead, we know that we too will be resurrected if we live in Christ. As we proclaim on Easter, Jesus rose from the dead. As we proclaim every day, Jesus lives. He lives! And NOTHING, absolutely nothing, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, not even persecution, famine, war, and death. No, we pass from this world that is seen, into a world that is not seen, but no less real, as we live with God.

Our other scripture this morning gives us a view into that crowd of saints. We hear some of the names, and we remember some of the stories. We read of so many Old Testament figures. People like Abraham, who was given a promise by God that he would receive a son, and learned to trust that God keeps his promises, even when God asked Abraham to give him back his only son. And people like Moses, who murdered a man, but was redeemed by God to lead Israel out of exile in Egypt. And people like David, who sinned repeatedly, but still loved God their whole lives. These are our witnesses, that great cloud of saints who have followed God. Not perfect people, but people who walked with God. People like us. People like the saints we have said goodbye to. Hebrews takes over a chapter telling their stories because their stories are important to our faith. As we remember how God has acted in the lives of these Biblical people, we remember a little more that God still acts in our own lives, and that God can be trusted to be faithful. Their lives give us examples for us to follow. Their lives teach us about God.

That is why the church recognizes saints after all. These are people who understood what it meant to walk with God, and they did so faithfully. The saints are people who saw God’s promises, and now see his promise of resurrection fulfilled. And we have plenty of saints to learn from. People like Augustine who explored just about every religion and every lifestyle in the Roman world before coming to know Christ. And then he faithfully led the church as a pastor and then finally as a bishop, fighting against false teaching, and encouraging the people. Or people like John Wesley, who founded Methodism, not to create a new denomination, but to revive the churches in England through the spiritual disciplines, praying, fasting, preaching, and giving away the vast majority of his income for his entire life to take care of the poor.

But it isn’t just the lives of the saints who still speak. It is also the lives of the souls who have gone to be with Christ. Those who lived quietly in a small corner of the world, faithfully trusting God day after day after day after day. Those people who taught our Sunday school classes, and first showed us who God is as they taught us the stories of the Bible. Those relatives who prayed for us because they knew that God answers prayers. Those friends who challenged us to trust God when life was hard, and who trusted God for us when we couldn’t. I have them in my own life, grandparents, friends, housemates, men and women of the churches I’ve attended. I know you have them too.

Who are your saints? Who taught you to live faithfully by their own example? And how will you pass on their stories? If it is important for us to remember the lives of the saints in Hebrews, it is important for us to remember the lives of the saints in our own lives too. So how will you remember them? Will you keep their pictures up on your walls? Will you remember their lives at family dinners? Will you watch old family videos and look through old photo albums together?

You know the lessons of their lives. I would consider myself faithful if I lived as trusting as Alyssa, knowing that God is good, regardless of her circumstances, and finding joy in the simple pleasures of life. I am seeking to “run with perseverance the race marked out for me, fixing my eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” Will we be a part of that crowd around the throne who lived faithfully? People whose lives still speak of God’s faithfulness after we have passed into the loving arms of Jesus? Let us pray and persevere that it may be so.