Nov. 5 - All Saints Sunday-
a celebration of the hope that is
ours in Jesus Christ
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead… 1 Peter 1:3
All Saints Sunday is a celebration of the hope that is ours in Jesus
Christ. In the hymns we sing to one
another, we remind each other of God’s mighty promises.
Our whole worship service is a celebration of Christ’s death and
resurrection. It’s an act of remembering
before God the sacrifice of Jesus, who, in submission to His Father and for
love of us all, didn’t try to evade death, but let himself be crucified. The gospel - the raising of Lazarus - is a
sign pointing to Christ’s victory over death – the basis of our hope – for he
promises that we who follow shall also be victorious.
Our second lesson from Revelation anticipates Christ’s final victory,
celebrating with confidence that it will happen, and also looking forward to
joining in one great, joyful community with the saints that have gone before us
– when all sorrows will be ended.
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. Revelation 21:4
In the prayers, we ask God to
bring to fulfillment the redemption that has already begun in history and in
our lives.
Our praise and thanksgiving begins with what God has done in the past
and looks to the future. That is the
context of our present moment – whether it be a time of gladness or
bereavement, of difficulty or joy – it can always be hopeful – a hope based on
what God has done and what God has promised for our future.
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We hope for many things. Often
we use that word “hope” as synonym for “wish”.
I wish I had a better car – or you hope for a better job. I wish we’d get some rain, or maybe you hope
your allergies will clear up. The wish
or hope has a desired outcome – perhaps realistic, perhaps not.
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Three men were sailing together on the
One day one of the men found an old lantern. He picked it up and started to clean it. As he rubbed it, a genie popped out and said:
“since you have released me, I’ll grant each of you a wish.”
The first said “I’m a cattleman from west
Poof – and he was back in
The second said, “I’m a stockbroker from
Poof, and
he was back on Wall Street.
The third said, “I’m quiet happy here – I just wish my two friends were
back here.”
Poof – poof and there they were.
Not everybody hopes for the same thing.
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But there is another kind of hope – a hope that doesn’t have a
specified outcome. For example, at
life’s darker moments we can’t imagine what to hope for at all. After a personal loss – or some series of
setbacks – or after you’ve tried everything you could think of and nothing
works, you conclude “I don’t know what to hope for any more.”
In such disappointing or perplexing situations, the temptation is to
feel hopeless. How can I have hope when
there’s nothing I hope for? Doesn’t that
define being hopeless?
No because there’s that other kind of hope. If you can’t imagine what to hope for,
you can discover how to hope in something. For Christians, this hope in something is
uniquely a hope in Someone – Jesus Christ.
Hope in the One who all powerful and all wise – I don’t have to tell Him
what I need, wish for – for He knows what would be best. Hope in the One who is present for us – and
even in us.
“Christ in you, the hope of glory” Colossians 1:27
Perhaps it’s only during those difficult times – when nothing else
works – and we finally just turn to the Lord – that we
discover we can simply hope in the Lord.
We don’t have to give him a list of what we need – we don’t really know
any more. We don’t have lay out a plan
to get out of the rut – we don’t have one anyway – we just rely on God.
We stopped relying on ourselves but learned to rely on
God, who raises the dead. He has rescued us from perils and will continue to
deliver us. On him we have set our hope that
he will do it again. 2 Corinthians
1:10, 11
We set our hope in Christ, because He is faithful and will not desert
us. We find Christ is present in our
suffering because He’d been through it himself.
Everything we suffered, he had suffered.
We’re tested, but he was tested too.
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The gospel today describes Jesus compassion- his empathy – for Mary and
Martha after their brother Lazarus had died.
Jesus was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply
moved. And moments later, Jesus
began to weep.
The Lord understands what we go through – and shares our grief and
sorrow.
So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"
John 11:33-36
All of us are beloved to Jesus.
He looks at us with love and compassion.
Every tear we wept, he had already wept.
So He understands and is there for us to give us the strength and grace
we need.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, we have obtained access
to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory
of God.
We can even
hope and rejoice in the midst of problems and trials, knowing that they
produce endurance, and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's
love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been
given to us. Romans 5:2-5
Hope in Christ will not disappoint us.
When he faced the hostile powers of sin, evil and death, he was
victorious.
He had the last word, and that word was resurrection.
Resurrection means He’s more powerful than any of the forces that bring
us down, even death.
Resurrection means He’s alive and still here for us, for he has given
us the Holy Spirit, so that we do not face life on our own, because he is
present with us.
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In the gospel, Jesus said to Mary,
"Did I not tell you that if you believed, you
would see the glory of God?" John
11:40
It is an invitation to faith - if you believed – if trust in the
Lord, hope in the Lord, you will see the glory of God.
Then the raising of Lazarus is reported in just two verses. The marvelous is not what’s important. Rather, Christ’s power to give physical life
is a sign of His power to give eternal life, as he says I am the
resurrection and the life. He who
believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live….
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You can abide in this hope, because it holds you.
You can just fall into it, like a trapeze artist falls into a net. She may miss the catch, but she risks it –
dares it – because she knows the net is there.
Christ is our hope because He is here for us. We can risk and dare – we can pick ourselves
up when life knocks us down – because his hand reaches out to us.
This kind of hope doesn’t look forward to possible outcomes – because
it doesn’t say “I hope for”, but rather “I hope in the
Lord”. I trust the Lord – and the final
out come will be good – even though right now I don’t know what it will
be. I’ve simply put my faith in his
wisdom and power – his goodness and love – and so I hope in the Lord.
I pray that the God ... may give you a spirit of
wisdom and revelation … so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you
may know the confident hope to which he has called you... Ephesians
1:18
On All Saints Sunday, we are reminded of all those who have gone before
us in the Lord. They hoped in the Lord,
and were not disappointed.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and
peace in believing, so that you may
abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13