Blessed Are They: An All Saints Day Meditation on Matthew 5 and Revelation 7

And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain:

and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:

And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness:

for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake:

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you,

and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven:

for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

 

…

 

And one of the elders answered, saying unto me,

What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me,

 These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes,

and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Therefore are they before the throne of God,

and serve him day and night in his temple:

and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;

neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them,

and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters:

and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

 

The Feast of All Saints, which is officially November 1^st on the church’s calendar, is often marked on the Sunday either immediately prior or after.  It is a time to reflect on eternal realities that can sometimes escape notice in the cacophony of daily life, and particularly the realities of eternal life.  Regardless of modern dalliances with atheism and materialism, every soul of every person will live forever, and there’s something deep inside every person that knows this is true.  That sense of eternity is what gives life meaning, informs our sense of human value, and the very nature of ethical obligations we have toward each other.  If man had no future beyond his short span of temporal life, then actions and thoughts wouldn’t matter in the least, and there would be no more appropriate axiom to life than the Epicurean ideal to eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die… without meaning, consequence, or purpose.  To the contrary, God speaks to all people that their lives have meaning and accountability far beyond the handful of years spent toiling away under the sun, and that for His people who abide in Him by grace through faith, that eternal state is one of blessedness.  Yet for those who reject Him, it is not their eternal destiny which is denied, but their blessedness and joy in His presence.  All people will live forever, and those who live forever in God’s fellowship, will live forever in joy.

 

In the Gospel text from Matthew 5, Jesus uses a Greek term for “blessed” that could just as easily be translated “joyous.”  Transliterated as Makarioi, it is a declarative term that those who abide in His Word will in fact be full of joy, if less manifest in this world than the world to come.  The poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those yearning after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those persecuted for keeping Jesus’ Word—all will experience trouble and tribulation in the present world, but will be filled with His joy in the world to come.  Jesus noted that such was the fate of the prophets who came before them, who in ages prior had lived struggling to abide in the Word and grace of God, suffered much at the hands of evil people and the wicked designs of malicious demons, only to find their names written indelibly in their Lord’s Book of Life.  Like the prophets before them, many who suffered tremendously for their testimony and faithfulness to God, would find that their eternal rewards in heaven far outstripped their temporary suffering.  In the presence of God their Savior, those who pass from this world to the next find joys unspeakable by mortal tongues, and a fulfillment of their created purpose inconceivable to dimmed earthly intellects.  It is as John glimpsed in His Apocalypse, where the white robed saints, forever washed clean by the Blood of the Lamb, abide with and are led by their God and King, no more to suffer nor weep.  The blessedness and joy of such an eternal fellowship is what the best of earthly fellowships strain to approximate, and it is the future toward which all Christians press by grace through faith in Christ alone.

 

Yet is important to remember how a person becomes blessed, inducted into such a great and unending fellowship.  It is not by powers native to fallen man, for no fellowship of man can achieve such joyous camaraderie.  Every fellowship of men in this world is marked by the sin and weakness of those men who form it, and pressed upon by the evil desires of those who are outside it.  To be sure, there are better and worse human associations in this world, those which do greater or lesser good, and those which do greater or lesser evil.  But the limits of fallen man prevent him from ever building utopia on earth, as every failed attempt at doing so in human history has demonstrated.  However, the fellowship which God creates in this world presses toward fulfillment in a world without sin, without evil, and without the associated pain and judgement evil brings forth.  When God calls people into His fellowship, He begins to transform them into His likeness, renewing the image of their Creator in them which was so horribly deformed by sin.  By the power of His Word and Spirit, He begins to transform their pride into humility, their warmongering into peacemaking, their gluttony into a hunger for righteousness, their vengefulness into mercy, their corruption into purity.  In the end, He even transforms the world’s persecution of them into marks of eternal accolade, where in His eternal Kingdom, those who suffer and are despised the most in their faith are elevated first among all.  It is God alone who makes the saints, and to God alone belongs the glory of their service.

 

As if fellowship with the King of the Universe were not enough, it is His good pleasure to pour out grace upon grace by creating and extending that fellowship outward among His people.  In the Creed we confess this as the Communion of the Saints, acknowledging the Cloud of Witnesses described by St. Paul in the book of Hebrews, and the heavenly hosts described by St. John, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and others.  The fellowship of God is a communion of all who abide in Him, knit together in the same divine love, grace, hope, faith, and joy that enlivens each individual soul.  It is a mysterious union shared across time and space between all who are grafted into the Vine of Jesus, an eternal reality that presses into the temporal realm of our daily lives.  Each baptized and faithful person in this world is in fact a part of the Body of Christ, numbered among His people with their names written in His Book of Life just like those who have gone on to glory before us.  In this fallen world the bonds of fellowship can be hard to see, but we recognize the same Holy Spirit at work among us through the same Word of Holy Scripture, bringing about faith and repentance in all who will believe and live in Him.  And what we see partially and imperfectly in this world, God is making pure and perfect in the world to come, so that when we press from this veil of tears into the glories of eternity, we press into the fullness of His Gospel made perfect in us forever.  We catch glimpses of this eternity in the signs He has given us according to His Word, of Holy Baptism, of the Body and Blood of the Eucharist, of Absolution for our sins, of the preaching of His Law and Gospel, and of the Spirit at work in us through our various callings and vocations bringing forth fruits of divine, sacrificial love.  It is a reality we can only now approach by faith, but to which God gives the surety of His promise both now and forever.

 

This is the joy which passes all understanding, which is being prepared for the saints of every time and place.  The fallen world will always be at war with the Word and Spirit of the Living God, and while they may exact their toll of suffering and mayhem in this time bound world, they can never overthrow the King of the Universe.  His Word of Gospel grace—that we are reconciled to the Father for the sake of the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit—cannot be broken or undone by any force of man or devil.  The gift of grace, received by faith in Jesus, is what makes the saints Makarioi, full of joy with life unending in the fellowship of God their Savior, and with the countless hosts of those white robed saints who have pressed into eternity before us.  Glory and thanksgiving be to God, now and forevermore, who has built His Kingdom on the Word of His Promise, and called all people into fellowship with Him.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.