Remembering a Saint Is Never Easy

All Saints’ Day is a day to remember the “great multitude which no man can count from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9).  But remembering all the Saints is never an easy thing to do.  It is like visiting the grave of a loved one.  Or listening once more to the recorded funeral sermon of a dear Saint.  It is never easy because death is a preacher of the Law far louder and mightier than all others.  His pulpit is the deathbed, the casket and the grave, and his sermons seem to never end.

Yet this festival of All Saints’ does not leave us despairing unto death.  It doesn’t leave our eyes downcast in the grave, rather this festival lifts our weeping eyes to see the one around whom all these saints are gathered, “standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9)  All poverty and mourning, meekness and hunger and thirst have left them.  Blessed are they, for having washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb, the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

It is why we sing. Right through the choking funeral tears, we sing.  For “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:10)

Behold a host, arrayed in white, like thousand snow-clad mountains bright!  
With palms they stand; who is this band before the throne of light?                 
These are the saints of glorious fame, who from the great affliction came           
And in the flood of Jesus' blood are cleansed from guilt and shame.               
They now serve God both day and night; they sing their songs in endless light. 
Their anthems ring as they all sing with angles shining bright.           LSB 676:1