11/4/2014 8:57:24 AM
All Saints' Day: "If Only..."
Posted under: Feast and Festivals
Festival of All Saints
November 2, 2014
1 John 3:1-3
"If Only.."
“If only…” “If only he hadn’t died.” “If only she hadn’t left.” “If only I had made a different decision.” “If only I hadn’t done that. “If only things were like they used to be.” “If only the clock could turn backward and not only forward.” Everyone one of us lives a “if only…” life; a life of regret, a life that changes in the blink of an eye, a life that is relegated to the past with skeletons helplessly unearthed by our sinful flesh and satanic foe. Like a time capsule hidden within the belly of the earth we wish to freeze in time the good and joyous times and melt away the times of sorrow, loss, and failure.
The illusion of “if only” wraps around our lives in grave clothes. It entombs us to the past as we try and build new lives over ruins of old ones, as we try to preserve what is decaying as we go down with the sinking ship. Everyone wants Jesus to turn back time, to preserve the past, to maintain what was. Mary and Martha are not the only ones who beg of Jesus, “If only…you had been there.” But we misunderstand Jesus if we think He was about giving us a map back to Eden, to be a curator of the past, to repristinate what ever years we think were golden. There is no “If only…” life with Jesus. There is only what is and what will be. When Jesus comes, He comes to attach Himself to this creation and through creation He comes to us. Jesus, Son of God, begotten of the Father from eternity attaches Himself to body, the Holy Spirit overshadows the Virgin and the Son is made as we are, yet without sin. He is joined to our flesh and blood, our bone and body, our sin and death. He does this precisely because He wants to. He loves you. You are His beloved child. So, He suffers for you. He dies for you. He rises for you. For the love of the Father is seen in the actions, in the life, in the death, and in the resurrection of His Son.
You are to see in the Son what kind of love the Father has given you. You are to see in the Father’s giving of His Son that this life, filled with sin, death, and devils, is not foundational reality. The reality of our life now, is not what it will be, what it is even now in Christ. This reality is not ultimate reality. It is, as we say, penultimate, that is, provisional, temporary, it is passing into an even greater reality. What we will be in Christ has not yet been revealed. But when Christ appears, we will be as He is, for He has become like us so that we will be as He is, in all His glory. See what kind of love the Father has, that He would sacrifice His only Son in order that He would have many sons, children that out number the sands of the seashore and the stars of the heavens. You no longer seek the old heaven and the old earth, but you press on in the promise and in hope of the new heavens and the new earth, the Christ who is your New Jerusalem, who is your new and more glorious life.
This is what St. John is talking about in his first letter. Beloved, we are not yet what we will be. Yes, sin and death are real. Pain and suffering are real. But what we will be has not yet been made manifest to us. All you can see is sin and suffering, loss and death. All you can see in yourself is sin and eventual death. But you are to see what great love the Father has given you. That He sent His Son into this creation. Not an ideal creation, not the illusion of a creation, but an actual creation. He sent His Son to actual death, to suffer real suffering, and not just physical suffering, but of being weighed down with all your sin. Because it’s real, there is a greater reality that God has made for you through His Son Jesus. See what great love the Father has given to you, that you sinners, whether cheaters and murders, homosexuals and home-wreakers, drunkards and drug addicts, deadbeat parents and defiant teens, lost and indifferent sheep, all of you in all of your mess, called children of God. Christ joins Himself not to that which is already clean or even that which tries to get itself clean, but that which is filthy and unclean, top to bottom, so that you would be called holy brothers and sisters, recipients of the love of an insanely compassionate Father.
The world knows nothing of this. The world cannot see it. The world looks around and all it can see is that which it can taste and touch, see and smell. It can only see the reality that it can experience. All the world can see is that you are the sum total of your deeds. This is why it’s intoxicated with flowery eulogies and sentimental drivel when it speaks of the dead. This is why it can’t properly understand what a saint is, confusing it with some sort of religious superhero, why it can only recount what you have done and twist it into some positive and ok category, of better places and bodiless eternities. The world doesn’t see that God is in control, what He is doing, how He is working and that He has done something about all the problems and perplexities that you face. You are who you are, not because of what you have done but because of what has been done unto you in the Father’s great love of His Son. The world doesn’t get you because it didn’t get Him. And if it didn’t get Him it won’t get you. The world lives in the “if only…” But you live in the “only,” only His, only forgiven, only saints waiting for what is to be revealed on the Last Day.
You know that the “if only” life tears you apart, limb from limb. Looking inside yourself you faint when you compare yourself to the written Law of God. You don’t see holiness. You don’t see saints. You only see and feel the sin of “if only.” And the more your around Jesus the more you see how far you have fallen. But who you are has not yet been revealed. When Jesus fully reveals Himself to the world, when every eye sees Him, every knee bows before Him, every tongue confesses His name, on that day, when He is revealed to your sight, face to face, then John’s promise shall come to pass. You will be like Jesus, because you will see Him as He is. See Him as He is in His resurrected and glorified body. Jesus has refused to detach Himself from you, even in death. Seeing Him in His glorified body will mean that you are in your glorified body, for you will be as He is.
To this singular hope we press on. In this hope we confess together the creedal confessions of our communion as His saints. We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. This hope purifies us sinners because it’s Christ in whom we hope, in His resurrection. This is the hope in which we have washed our sinful robes and have been declared sainted white, holy in the blood of the Lamb. It is this hope in which we are saved, not just the redemption of our soul, but of our body together with our soul. It is in this hope that we are gathered with all the saints who have gone before us, those who have died, those who are still alive of all times and of all places, this is the hope that we share. Hope in Christ and His resurrection.
So when John sees the sublime revelation of the church triumphant, when he sees with his eyes a multitude that no one could number, he sees you. He sees you in that revelation, along with Moses and Micah, David and Daniel, Ruth and Rebecca, Mary and Martha, James and John, Mark and Matthew, Peter and Paul, and all the saints who have gone before you. You are with them and they are with you. One flesh in Christ you are, tethered together by His body and His blood, joined in an everlasting blessed estate. Because you share His body and His blood together, you are with them and they are with you, and all are beloved in Christ.
You are in Christ. When God claims people as His own, because He is holy those who are His are holy. You are holy. Not because you can see it, not because you can experience it, not because you don’t sin, but simply because you are in Christ. In Christ you are with all the saints, one seamless garment of sainted sinners, declared holy and sainted by a flood of Baptism, by a Supper of body and blood. You are joined in this body and blood of Christ, joined to the saints in John’s revelation, joined to your loved ones who have died in the faith, all because Christ has joined you together with them and they with you, in His promise, in His love.
So on this All Saints’ day, it’s good to know that in the Sacrament of temporal and eternal fellowship, those who have gone before us in the faith, those who have been claimed by the Father through the Son, all together, His own dear children, one family, one body, are we. This is good to know because we get tired of living this “if only...” life, this could of, and should of, this loss of what is good and right, life. We get tired of seeing only sin and death, tired of doctors and diseases, tired of things not working out the way they are supposed to. We get tired, but in our weariness let the Church, its saints, its hymnody, comfort you. “The golden evening brightens in the West; soon, soon to faithful warriors cometh rest.” This is just the beginning. Listen, “Lo, there breaks a yet more glorious day,” more glorious than your soul resting from all its labors in Christ, more glorious than dying and going to heaven. “The saints triumphant rise in bright array.” Revealed finally as who they are in Christ, who you are in Christ, robes washed white in His blood. “The King of glory passes on His way.” Christ, the King, goes joyfully about gathering His saints from their graves. Alleluia. Christ is Risen. And you shall arise with all the faithful. Beloved, don't ever forget this fact regarding the only, holy, catholic, and apstolic church: As one body we eat, as one body we are forgiven, as one body we die, and as one body we are resurrected unto the new heavens and the new earth. In the name of the Father and of the Son [+] and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.