A WORD FOR TODAY, October 29, 2025
Peggy Hoppes
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Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, October 29, 2025
Lectionary Scriptures for November 2, 2025, All Saints Sunday: Revelation 7:(2-8) 9-17; Psalm 149; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12
“Praise Yahweh! Sing to Yahweh a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints.” Psalm 149:1, WEB
We attended a funeral on Monday. It was a beautiful memorial to a wonderful man that had impacted many people through his life, particularly through fifty years of ministry. Henry was the pastor of our church for twenty-one years and was called to that position after serving as a bishop. His humility was an excellent example to all of us. He loved with a heart that was filled with Jesus, shared his faith with everyone he met, and lived the grace and forgiveness he trusted.
Hundreds of people came to remember this man of God, gathering with tears and laughter. Everyone had a story to tell. One friend talked about how Henry interacted with her daughter. His daughter-in-law talked about his love of games and the Dallas Cowboys. A table full of memorabilia recalled a life of accomplishments and love. His granddaughter sang a hymn, inviting us to join her in the peace of knowing, “It is well with my soul.” Over and over again, people witnessed about Henry’s impact on their faith.
I met Henry in 2012 at a meeting. He met dozens of people that day, and our interaction was very brief. I don’t recall seeing him again for several years, but when we met again, Henry not only remembered me, but he also remembered my name. I’ve shared that story with others who knew him, and they said the same thing. It wasn’t just about having an amazing memory, but Henry enjoyed people and he always made you feel like you were loved. We all said that when Henry walked through the pearly gates of heaven, he definitely heard the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Henry was a saint if ever there was one, and yet Henry was not a saint because of what He did. Henry was a saint because he believed in Jesus. The love of Jesus flowed into his heart and then flowed out into the lives of those of us who were blessed to know him.
Henry was blessed to be a blessing, and he lived that calling to the day he died. Unfortunately, all the saints have a limited time on earth. Henry lived long, and though he struggled with his health these past few years, he left us in peace, knowing that death was only the beginning of an eternity with his Lord. A spoke to Henry’s friend on Monday and she said, “He looks so peaceful, doesn’t he?” Yes, he did look at peace. The struggles of this life were over for Henry, and though we cry tears of grief, we also join in his joy and laughter, knowing we will see him again. When our pastor said those words in his sermon, I thought to myself, “And he’ll know my name.”
Sunday is All Saints Sunday, a day we remember those who have passed from this life into life eternal. I will remember my aunt who died earlier this year, another saint who had a heart that overflowed with the love of Jesus. Some years are harder than others, like the years my parents died and when I lost my best friend. As I get older, the reality of death becomes clearer. As I remember the saints who died this year, I am remind that my day will come, too. All Saints is a time for us to consider our mortality, to hear the stories of the saints, and to ask ourselves, “Are we living the life of faith that will bring us to the joyful moment when we, too, hear the words ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’?”
It isn’t about earning our way to heaven. Henry did not ever think his kindness would earn him a place in heaven; he knew that it was all about Jesus. He shared that Good News with everyone. It is good news to discover that we can’t earn God’s grace, because we know that we can never be good enough to deserve the kindness of God. We can’t do anything worthy of God’s glory, but thanks to Jesus, we will experience His love and blessing when we enter into the pearly gates of heaven. Jesus invites us in, pats us on the back with an “Attaboy!” welcoming us into His joy and peace for eternity.
It is my hope that the day I die, people will gather with stories like they did with Henry, sharing how the love of Jesus poured out from my heart and how I impacted their faith. I pray I will hear the words “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I am reminded, however, that I will never deserve such blessing from God, He gives it mercifully and graciously through Jesus Christ, my Lord. I am a saint, not because I have earned the title, but because Jesus gave it to me by His willing sacrifice on the cross.
A few years ago, I attended an All-Saints Sunday worship at the cathedral in Bury St. Edmunds, England. Bishop Clive preached on the Gospel lesson of the Beatitudes. Throughout the sermon the bishop kept saying, “Consider yourself blessed.” It is hard to think in those terms when the blessedness is given to people who are being persecuted and are suffering. Bishop Clive explained, “In the beatitudes, Jesus was making saints out of ordinary people.” All those in Christ are saints, called, gifted and sent to be His witnesses in the world. The saints are those who trust in God no matter their circumstances.
What is a saint? From the Concise Encyclopedia: “[A saint is a] Holy person. In the New Testament, St. Paul used the term to mean a member of the Christian community, but the term more commonly refers to those noted for their holiness and venerated during their lifetimes or after death.”
While this definition is true, it isn’t complete, because we know that the scriptures refer to all those who are Christians are saints. Saints do not have an exceptional degree of holiness or virtue. Those who have been canonized have died, and their stories show them to be extraordinarily faithful or pious, at least at the end of their life. We all remember people like Henry from our own lives that we count among the saints even though they have not been canonized. We remember their goodness, but the reality is that they were not perfect. They had faults. They sinned. They did not deserve the goodness that they experience in the eternal life with God. They join the Church Triumphant, not by their own works, but by God’s grace will sing praises to God forever.
Many churches will have special ceremonies this Sunday in remembrance of those we loved and lost this year. Our church places white roses in a basket as the names are read. Those we remember dealt with their own suffering and sacrifices. They learned to live as children of God from those experiences, and they passed those lessons on to us. They should be remembered for the impact they had on the world.
We are called to have an impact, too. The Beatitudes are given to us to help us to become the disciples that God intends us to be. Martin Luther wrote in his commentary on the Beatitudes, “These eight beatitudes are nothing else than a teaching about the fruits and good works of a Christian, which must be preceded by faith, as the tree and main body or sum of his righteousness and blessedness, without any work or merit, out of which these beatitudes must all grow and follow.”
John Stott wrote, “These characteristics do not describe eight separate and distinct groups of disciples. There are not some who are meek, while others are merciful, yet others called upon to endure persecution. These are eight qualities of the same group who at one and the same time are meek and merciful, poor in spirit and pure in heart, mourning and hungry, peacemakers and persecuted. They are the characteristics of the common, everyday Christians.” The Beatitudes emphasize who we are rather than what we do. They are not a statement of social or sociological judgment about the poor and hungry, and though we are to take care of those in need, the Beatitudes are the beautiful attitudes of the people who are obedient to God’s Word, humble before God and merciful to neighbor.
“Blessed” is sometimes translated “happy.” Happiness is subjective feeling, but in this text, Jesus is making an objective judgment about those who follow Him. The word “to bless” means “to speak well of.” These blessings are what God thinks of Jesus’ disciples and what they are: blessed (fortunate, “it will be well with them.”) The saints include all those in Christ in every time and every place, including us. The saints are those who have been blessed by God’s grace and who lived, do live, or will live in the faith that is a gift from God. That blessedness is not accompanied by some sort of giddy happiness or a life of prosperity. Jesus calls those whose lives are ravaged by the world as “blessed.” God blesses us at the pearly gates with those words that speak well of us, not because we deserve it, but because He loves us. “Well done, good and faithful servant,” is God’s way of blessing our lives lived in faith.
The world reads today’s Gospel lesson and laughs at the foolishness. The beatitudes are eight beautiful attitudes that are lived by those who follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Matthew’s Gospel is organized to establish Jesus as the foundation, as the One who accomplished the will and purpose of God in this world. His life was parallel to the people of Israel, but where Israel failed to keep the faith, Jesus did so and in doing so, Jesus made it possible for the rest of us to do so, too.
In his letter, the Apostle John wrote, “See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him.” We are the saints, the children of God. It is the love of God that gives us this grand and glorious title; by His mercy we are adopted into His family, and we will inherit His kingdom one day, just as those faithful ones we have loved and lost have already received their inheritance. They have heard the words at the pearly gates and entered in the joy of Jesus forever. We live in the hope of faith that one day we will join them to dwell forever in the presence of God. For now, we have to deal with the reality that we are blessed though we are ravaged by the world. Sometimes the blessing is in the suffering, as with those martyrs of old who were blessed because they passed through death into the bosom of God for eternity by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Friday is All Hallows Eve, otherwise known as Halloween. It is a day when the kids wander the streets at night dressed up as all sorts of characters begging for candy from the neighbors. Over the years I’ve had numerous positions about Halloween from loving the Trick-or-Treating to hiding from the Trick-or-Treaters to vocally denouncing the holiday because of its focus on darkness and greed.
Some claim that the holiday has roots in a pagan holiday called Samhain from the days of the Celtic Druids, which marked the end of summer and the beginning of the dark days of winter. Historians note that there is no record of the celebration before the tenth century, hundreds of years after Christianity had settled into the region. There are records of Irish Christians celebrating All Saints Day in 843 AD.
Halloween is based on All Saint’s Day, not the other way around; the Church did not try to take over an ancient holiday to Christianize it. The claim that Halloween was an ancient Celtic festival based on the belief that spirits walked the earth and that they must be placated with food or they will play tricks, and the living must dress up in disguise to fool the evil spirits is not true. Samhain was a lunar festival and so would not have had a fixed date. There were Celtic festivals for the dead, but they were not on October 31st. The church was already celebrating the lives of the saints in May since the second century, but the remembrance of Hallowmas (All Saints’ Day) was established as November 1st in the eighth century in Rome, far from the backwater land of the Celts. October 31st then became All Hallows Eve (Halloween). The two days were related, just as many Christian festivals have an “eve” before the day during which Christians gather in vigil to prepare hearts and minds for the festival celebration.
Today Halloween and All Saints Day are completely unrelated celebrations. Oddly, Halloween seems so much more like a night of the living as everyone gathers to have fun at parties, parades, and Trick-or-Treating. Though many of the costumes are dark and wicked, death is not the focus of the evening for most people. My favorite part of Trick-or-Treating is the costumes of the little ones who are dressed as fairy princesses or popular cartoon characters. I especially love to see the homemade costumes. It is interesting how in this day, many people decorate their homes with orange and purple lights, making them as bright as we see during the Christmas season.
We have turned the days upside down. All Hallow’s Eve is no longer a time of vigil and soberness and All Saints’ Day a time of joy and celebration. We laugh and play on All Hallow’s Eve but spend All Saint’s Day remembering those who died this year. There is a sense of celebration because we loved them, but the mood tends to be sad and teary as we mourn the loss of those we loved.
The book of Revelation has been widely interpreted, and misinterpreted, since John wrote it nearly two thousand years ago. Read a dozen commentaries and you’ll find a dozen different explanations for the symbolism of the images and the numbers. Today’s passage includes one of the most puzzling accounts of all. The number 144,000 has been described by some as a literal number, yet if we take that as true, even those who believe this can’t account for the multitudes who have been sealed by God’s grace.
In the verse following the list of tribes, John wrote that there was a great multitude that no one could number. Some say that this refers back to the 144,000; others say that there are two different groups. I’ve always interpreted the 144,000 as twelve times twelve tribes times a thousand, which was the largest number understood in John’s day, thus representing the whole body of those saved, both Jews and Gentiles.
Does our interpretation of the symbolism really matter? What is the point of John’s witness about this scene? What is happening there that we should try to understand?
John wrote, “The multitude cried out, ‘Salvation be to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” This was a moment of worship, of thanksgiving, of witness to the work of God in Jesus Christ. He is being praised for saving God’s people, bringing them through the tribulation and making them right so that they can stand before the throne. The angels see this praise and join in with the faithful, singing a doxology of praise. Whatever the numbers mean, every one of the faithful, both angelic and human, are part of the eternal worship that will glorify Christ forever. This is our eternal hope; this is the life the saints will live according to God’s promises. This is the hope that God has fulfilled through Jesus Christ, washing our righteousness with His blood so that we can stand before Him in praise and thanksgiving; it is the hope that we will never suffer again.
The apocalyptic text gives us a picture of what life will be when everything has been fulfilled. That multitude represents all those who believed in Jesus throughout time and space. We stand somewhere in that multitude. We are part of those who have washed our robes in Christ’s blood and who will spend eternity worshipping God. We are the children of God. We are the saints. Thanks to God’s grace we are blessed with this future, but that doesn’t mean that our present will be without pain. We will suffer. We will get sick. And yes, we will die.
Pain never enters our mind when we think of blessedness. We think that the blessed are those who are healthy, wealthy, and popular. We equate blessedness with being comfortable, contentment with satisfaction. We would never consider the poor, hungry, or sick to be blessed, for they are suffering in a world that God made good. However, the danger to our souls comes when we are too comfortable. When we are satisfied, we do not see that we need help or look to God for His grace.
Jesus had a way of turning our world upside down. We would much rather be happy. We prefer a life of wealth, health, and popularity. However, Jesus never promised us a rose garden. He promised Himself. We can find blessedness in poverty and in mourning, not because there is anything good about these things but because it is in suffering that we turn to grace. Physical blessedness is found in pain because the pain makes us look at the one who can heal us. Spiritual blessedness is found in suffering because it makes us look to God. The saints trust in God no matter their circumstances.
Jesus does not call us to overcome our troubles or wallow in them; He encourages us to live in an attitude of trust and confidence that God is faithful to His promises. The beatitudes are the attitudes of God’s people living in faith. Jesus was not speaking the beatitudes to great crowds of people; He was speaking to the disciples. This wasn’t a lesson for those trying to earn their way to heaven. It is for those who believe in the work of God. The lesson was given for us, the Christians who are saved by the cross of Christ, saints who are anxious for the day when we will join the hosts in heaven singing God’s praise. We are comforted by the Word of God that tells us this life is only a momentary journey on our way to an eternity in heaven. We believe and we are blessed. We find comfort in the promise that our mourning will one day come to an end forever as God Himself wipes away our tears.
On All Saints’ Sunday, we remember those who have passed from this life to the next. We can’t help but mourn, because their lives mean something to us. They impacted our lives. They taught, touched, comforted, fed, showed mercy, and shined the light of Christ to us. They loved us. They will be missed, and it is good for us to take a moment to remember them.
Though we mourn, we are also called to rejoice. There is pain in the death of those we love because they will no longer be with us, but there is also joy because we know that they are now among the multitude praising God forever. We join with all Christians in heaven and on earth signing songs of praise and thanksgiving, knowing that we will be part of that multitude someday, signing songs of praise and thanksgiving like the psalmist who wrote, “Praise Yahweh! Sing to Yahweh a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints.”
We stop on All-Saints Day to thank God for their witness. We were brought into the fellowship of believers by those we love who shared the Gospel with us. We are called to live as they lived, as witnesses so that those who are yet to come will have the opportunity to hear God’s Word and believe. We are saints and that means something. It means we are God’s children called to a life of worship and praise, of service and justice, of love and peace and joy. Though the life that awaits us after death is greater than anything we can experience in this world, we still have work to do here and now.
The promise of God is not that we’ll be saved from suffering at the hands of our enemies. By His grace we have been saved from the greatest enemy: death. We have the promise of eternal life, an inheritance beyond anything we can imagine. How much more should we praise God for His grace and mercy? We are called to live a daily life of thanksgiving and praise to God for everything. Jesus Christ made it possible for us to dwell now in the Kingdom of Heaven even as we wait longingly to join those who are already singing the eternal doxology of praise at the foot of God’s throne in robes made whiter than we can even imagine.
A story is told of a young boy who went with his grandmother to a cathedral. As they wandered the aisles looking at the windows, the woman asked her grandson, “Do you know who the saints are?” She was referring to the figures in the windows and their stories. The young boy answered, “They are the people who the light shines through.” He knew that there was more to their life than just their story. They were saints because God shines His light in their lives. His love overflowed from their hearts.
The light comes from inside us and it shines for the world to see. We can complain about the darkness, death, and evil all around us, but it is when the light shines through our lives that we actually have an impact. When we focus on life rather than death and light rather than darkness, the world will see God and know He is real. Sadly, we laugh at the darkness and death of Halloween but mourn at the celebration of the saints. There is pain in the death of those we love because they will no longer be with us, but there is also joy because we know that they are now among the multitude who are praising God forever.
What is a saint? A saint is one in whom God takes pleasure, the ones who are humble before Him, believing His Word, and receiving His salvation like a crown. Let us thank God for all those who loved and served Him like Henry and my aunt and all those who passed from this life into God’s eternal kingdom this year. They acted as witnesses for Jesus so that we will meet them in heaven one day, praising God together forever because we have been saved by His mercy and grace.
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