Blessed Are You!

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Today is All Saints’ Sunday a Festival Day of the Church Calendar. It has a fixed date: November 1st. It is typically observed on the first Sunday in November. This year the Festival Day falls on a Sunday.

All Saints’ Day has a long history, and its beginnings are tied to the Church's remembrance of Christian martyrs.

The word martyr comes from the Greek martyras, meaning “witness.” A martyr witnessed to Christ not simply by words but by remaining faithful when faithfulness could cost everything.

Christians who were willing to suffer and die rather than deny Christ showed that their faith was not merely an intellectual claim. They believed that Christ had conquered death and that eternal life was worth more than preserving their earthly lives.

An example would be St. Agnes of Rome. She was born in 291 AD. Her family was a part of the Roman nobility. She was raised as a Christian. She suffered martyrdom on the 21st of January 304 AD. She was either 12 or 13 years old at the time. As a young noblewoman she would be in line for an arranged marriage to the son of another noble family. 

When the pagan families who had eligible bachelors found out the family was Christian they flew into a rage. Her potential suitors were deterred by her resolute devotion to religious purity and faith in Jesus. They sought to persecute her for her beliefs. Her father urged her to deny God, but she refused. A lawless mob dragged her naked through the streets to a brothel, then tried and sentenced to death. When burning her at the stake failed, she was eventually beheaded.

Here was a woman who had been insulted, persecuted, falsely convicted and killed for the sake of righteousness, remaining true and faithful to Jesus under imaginable circumstances. She did not cry out and assert her rights. She humbly submitted to the crowds and put her life in Jesus Christ’s hands.

Martin Luther had a particular devotion to Agnes. He spoke warmly of her faith and courage, especially because she remained faithful to Christ despite being threatened with death. Her story embodied the Christian conviction that death is not the end for those who belong to Christ—they will see Him.

The day of death of each martyr was often remembered as the day of their entrance into eternal life with Christ. So, on January 21st of each year the congregations around the City of Rome would remember the martyrdom of Agnes the Roman noblewoman. As the number of martyrs grew, churches developed calendars of their names and dates.

As Christianity spread, local churches had different calendars and different saints whom they remembered. There was concern that many faithful Christian martyrs—especially those whose names were unknown—would be forgotten. So they dedicated one day a year for a commemoration of all the saints.

Church historians report that the Church of Antioch was observing a commemoration of all holy martyrs on the first Sunday after Pentecost as early as the fourth or fifth century. By the time of John Chrysostom (347-407 AD), the observance had become widespread.

By the ninth century, November 1 had become the established date.

In the beginning, individual Christians were honoured for their sacrificial witness to our Lord Jesus Christ and his Gospel. Kings, queens, governors, priests and others in authority demanded that these believers renounce their faith in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and cease and desist from their evangelistic activities. Those in authority declared: “Refuse to obey these orders and you will face torture and death.” The people named on the church calendars had chosen Jesus and they had paid the price for that choice.

The willingness of Christians to face imprisonment, torture and sometimes death caused many people to ask: “What is that gives these people such courage?” Many learned their secret: “Jesus Christ, and him crucified and resurrected!

The martyrs believed Paul’s words. Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6:4-5)

They believed Jesus when he said: “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. (Jon 5:24)

Jesus said to Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Agnes of Rome said, “I do believe Jesus.” She stepped out in faith and her body died, but Jesus promised her a new life with him. She had a pure in heart, and she did see God.

What a beautiful practice. Remembering those who had paid the ultimate price for their faith. What could go wrong? We go wrong!

There were several important controversies surrounding All Saints’ Day, especially during the Reformation. Not just the controversy over the day itself, when it should be observed, but more importantly, the controversy over how saints were regarded and remembered.

The medieval church developed extensive practices of venerating “saints” special Christians that the church canonized. Prayers asking for their intercession could be made. Pilgrimages to their shrines, looking at their relics, staring at their images, and offering special devotions to a saint gave a believer merits with God.

The reformers were concerned about the distinction between honoring saints and potentially worshiping them. Reformers became increasingly concerned that ordinary Christians could easily understand these practices as giving saints a role that belonged to God alone.

The reformers recaptured the New Testament, understanding that a “saint” is a baptized believer in Christ. The word means “holy one.” Christians are saints not because they have lived perfect lives, but because Christ has forgiven their sins and given them His righteousness.

Therefore, in the Lutheran tradition, All Saints Day is a day to give thanks to God for all His saints—not only famous Christians recognized by the Church, but all believers who have been made holy through faith in Jesus Christ. That is why Jesus words in Matthew 5:1–12, the Beatitudes, are so appropriate for the day.

The saints were not those who had lived perfect lives. They were sinners who lived by the mercy of God. They sinned, mourned, struggled, failed, repented, trusted Christ, and endured suffering. And now they have received the fullness of God's promises.

The great hope of All Saints' Day is therefore not “Look how good these people were."

It is: “Look how faithful God was to them.”

Jesus took the poor in spirit — those who recognized their need for God's mercy - and transformed them into citizens of the Kingdom of God and sons and daughters of God the Father.

He took the mourning of those grieved by their sin, suffering, and impending death and changed it by his own death and resurrection.

He gave the poor in spirit true meekness — the gift of trusting God rather than relying upon power or self-assertion. No one is meeker than Jesus. The Son of God had to bear the insults and deadly torture of his own people and gentiles for our sake. His example inspired true humility in his disciples.

He satisfied those who hunger and thirst for righteousness — those longing for God to make things right. He lived a perfect life which God imputes to the poor in spirit. By his death Jesus atoned for the sins of those who mourn their sins and was resurrected to new life for those who mourned and feared their death.

He gave the poor in spirit the gift of being merciful — a mercy that is inspired by and based on the mercy we have received from Christ.

He gave the poor in spirit a pure in heart. King David had cried out to God: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10) God created a clean heart in David by forgiving him of his grievous sins. Jesus creates a clean heart in the poor in spirit in the same way, by paying for our sins so that we are forgiven by God.

Jesus transforms the poor in spirit into peacemakers. Because they have been reconciled to God by Christ and have peace with God, they seek the same reconciliation and peace for others through the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus makes the poor in spirit ones who will be persecuted for righteousness — able to remain faithful to Christ despite opposition. God had given the martyrs of the early church and of every age thereafter a special ministry. We can be sure that Jesus Christ gave Agnes of Rome the faith, strength, love and passion to face her murderers and to pay the final ugly and horrific price. Jesus gave the same resilience and gifts to the poor in spirit whose persecution did not reach to the point of the shedding of blood.

And we are blessed in the very same way. This gives us confidence for our own journey of faith.

I believe that if we could for just a moment see all the saints, “that great cloud of witnesses” that surround us (from Adam to St. Peter, St. Paul, our parents, grandparents and all others who have gone before would us), they would all be doing the same thing. They would be pointing to Jesus, the one who made them saints. 

Amen.

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