In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

On All Saints’ Day we remember our loved ones who have died in the faith and are now in heaven with Jesus. For many of us, this is one of our favorite days of the Church Year. Even though there are many things about it that make us sad, nothing gives us more joy than to think about what Christ has promised to those who love Him. I think it is fair to say that on All Saints’ Day we get to sing some of the best hymns that have ever been written. Hymns like “Lord Thee I Love with All My Heart,” or “Behold A Host Arrayed in White,” and my own personal favorite, “For All the Saints.” On top of that, there are also these magnificent readings. Jesus’ words from Matthew chapter 5 about how despite their suffering, God’s people are truly blessed in Christ no matter what they experience in this life. Or the words of Saint John from his first epistle, and how we are God’s children now, and even though we don’t know everything about what our life will be like in eternity, we know that will be like Jesus, because we will see Him as He is. And, of course, who can forget the beautiful picture of heaven from Revelation chapter 7? The saints of God from every time and place gathered around the throne of the Lamb, free from sorrow, free from sin, free from sickness and suffering, singing praises to the Lord forever and ever.

The entire service today reminds us of what a good Lutheran funeral should be all about. It shouldn’t be about how great the person was who died, or all the things that they liked to do while they were still living. What does it matter what our favorite football team was or how many mountains we climbed when we are lying in a casket and our family and friends are standing next to us wondering what to do next? Memories, however powerful they might be, do not have the power to bring our loved ones back from the dead. And that is why they should not be the main focus of the service. Rather, a good Lutheran funeral should be about Christ. It should be about the comfort that is found only in the Word of God, and what the death and resurrection of Jesus means for those who put their trust in Him.

And so, that is what I would like to talk more about in today’s sermon. As we sing these wonderful hymns, and hear these wonderful readings, and think about the wonderful things that Christ has done for us and those we love, let us consider together the true comfort of All Saints’ Day.

The first comfort of All Saints’ Day is that everyone who has died in the faith is not truly dead, but is even now alive and with the Lord Jesus in heaven. Again, that is what we see taking place in our first reading from Revelation chapter seven. As Saint John writes, “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” Who is it that Saint John is talking about in this passage? He tells us just a few verses later, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

What Saint John saw was a vision of what we call the Church Triumphant. We are the Church Militant, those Christians who are still fighting the good fight of faith in this world. The Church Triumphant are the people of God in heaven. They the baptized children of God who are now at rest from their labors. They are the saints of Jesus Christ, who were made holy not by their own strength, merit, or works, but by the precious blood of Christ. They are those who put their trust in Jesus in this life and are now with Him in eternal life.

The Word of God tells us that when a Christian dies and their soul is separated from their body, immediately, they are transported to the nearer presence of Christ and experience unending fellowship with Him and the whole company of heaven. In fact, that is what heaven is. Heaven is unending fellowship with God. It is communion with Jesus and all His saints that never comes to an end. Remember what Saint Paul says in Philippians chapter 1, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” and “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” Remember also what happened to poor Lazarus, and how the Bible tells us that when he died the angels came and carried his soul to Abraham’s side. And remember, of course, what Jesus once said to the thief on the cross, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” 

Nowadays, when people talk about heaven, they usually describe it in terms of whatever they like to do the most here on earth, especially while skipping church. “So and so” is having a great time working on their car in heaven. Or “so and so” is have a blast fishing and playing cards in heaven. But that is not what heaven is like according to the Bible. According to the Bible, heaven is unending worship. As Saint John also tells us in his vision, “Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple.” Heaven is a Church Service that lasts forever. The only difference is that unlike how things can be for us now because of our sinful nature, heaven is the kind of Church service that we won’t ever want to come to an end. 

There are a lot of questions that we Christians still have about eternal life in heaven. Will my dog be there? Will that person be there who I desperately want to be there, and if they aren’t there, will I even be aware of it? Even though God does not give us all of the answers about heaven in His Word, He does give us the one answer that we need. As Saint John writes, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Whatever heaven is like, there is nothing about it that will cause us grief. Regardless of who is there, or what is there, we will be there with Jesus, and Jesus will be enough, because Jesus is always enough. Again, that is the first comfort of All Saints’ Day. It is that everyone who has died in the faith is not truly dead, but is even now alive and with the Lord Jesus in heaven.

The second comfort of All Saints’ Day is that our loved ones who have died in faith will one day rise again from the dead and we will join them in the resurrection on the Last Day.  Sometimes people forget that heaven, or that “in between time,” when our souls are with the Lord while our bodies are buried in the ground, is not actually our final destination as Christians. As we confess every Sunday in the Creed, “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.” Eternal life is not complete until we are complete. It is not truly begun until Jesus returns in glory and brings us back together as we were made to be in the first place.

Listen to how Saint Paul describes it for us in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them.” And remember what Job said in the middle of his terrible suffering, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!”

We live in a time where people have a very low view of the body, and that especially comes out when a person dies. Sometimes when a person died the body is ground up into dust and scattered into the wind as if it were being reunited with the earth like the pagans teach. Sometimes even well-meaning Christians will try and comfort others at funerals by saying that it is not really their loved one who is lying there in the casket. But if that isn’t our loved one, then who exactly is it, and why are we so sad about it? We are sad, because we know deep down that it is them. We know that our bodies are just as much a part of who we are as our souls, and that without our body, something would always be missing. We don’t just want to be with our loved ones someday spiritually. We want to be with them physically. We want to talk with them again. We want them to open their eyes and hug us with their arms. We want to hear the sound of their voice and we want to see the smile on their face.

And the Bible tells us that for those who endure in the faith until the end, we will. Again, as Saint John writes in his first epistle, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that we he appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.” No, we do not know exactly what our bodies will be like in eternal life, but we do know that they will be our bodies. They will be the same bodies that we had in this life except they will be free from all of the things that made them wrong in this life. They will be free from sin. Just like Jesus is free from sin, we will be free from sin too. Just like Jesus has a body, and it is the same body that died and rose, except now it is a body that has been glorified so that is incapable of ever dying again, that is how it will be for our bodies. If there is something that is not right with our body now, it will be made right in eternity. If there something that we don’t like about our body, even if it is not something that needs to change, what will change is how we see our body. We will see it for the gift that it truly is. 

One of the things that always get asked when this topic comes up in Bible class is, “Will I be able to recognize my loved one in heaven?” While there are many questions about heaven that we do not have the answer to, that is a question that I actually think that we do. And the answer is a resounding, “yes.” When Saint John saw a vision of the Church Triumphant, he recognized people for who they were. He saw a multitude from every nation, from every tribe people and language. John saw all of our distinctiveness and everything that makes each one of us unique. John could tell who was who. On top of that, we also have the witness of Saint Peter from the mount of Transfiguration. Even though Peter had never met Moses and Elijah before in his life, by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was still able to identify them by their appearance. How could we be in perfect fellowship with God and all His saints if we didn’t even know their names? No, as the Bible says, “We shall know fully, even as we are fully known.”

Again, that is the second comfort of All Saints’ Day. It is that our loved ones who have died in faith will one day rise again from the dead and we will join them in the resurrection on the Last Day.

And the last comfort of All Saints’ Day is that our loved ones who have died in the faith are with us now in the Means of Grace. Yes, the souls of our loved ones are in heaven with Jesus. And yes, the souls of our loved ones will be reunited with their bodies at the return of Jesus in glory. But let us not forget that Jesus is still with us. As Jesus promised in Matthew chapter 28, “Behold I am with you always, to very end of the age.” And because Jesus is still with us, we know that our loved ones who are with Jesus, are with us too whenever we are with Him. 

The place where we Christians have fellowship with Jesus is always in God’s Word and Sacraments. The Bible tells us that when we are baptized into Christ we put on Christ. It tells us that where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ Name there He is among them. And it tells us that whenever we eat and drink the bread and wine of Communion, we are consuming the true Body and Blood of Christ. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10 Saint Paul writes, “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one Body for we all partake of the one bread.” I don’t know if you have ever thought about what those words means for you when you take the Lord’s Supper, but I know when I first started to think about it myself. As some of you know, my parents are both already with the Lord in heaven. When my dad died, I was very young. I don’t remember everything that happened, but I do remember what my mom told me and my brothers the first week back to church after his funeral. She said to us, “Your dad was there with us at the altar.”

Mom was right. And it was not just wishful thinking on her part. It was what the Bible teaches and what the Church has always confessed in the Liturgy. As the author of Hebrews tells us, “We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” And as the pastor says right before we sing the Sanctus, it is “with angels, and archangels, and the whole company of heaven that we laud and magnify God’s glorious name.”

If you want to be close to your loved ones who have died in the faith, go to where Jesus promises to be close to you. Jesus doesn’t tell you that you get closer to Him by taking a walk in the woods or playing eighteen holes of golf. He doesn’t tell you to search for His presence hidden in your feelings or bound up to your emotions. He doesn’t tell you to look for Him in bird signs, in sunsets, or reincarnated in the form of cat. And that is not where we find our loved ones either. If they were Christians, we find them in the place where all Christians are found. We find them in Church. Again, that is the last comfort of All Saints’ Day. It is that our loved ones who have died in the faith are with us now in the Means of Grace.

There are many things about today that make us sad. But in the midst of all of that, we Christians still have comfort. We have the only comfort that matters and the only comfort that lasts. We have the comfort that comes from Christ. It is the comfort that is ours because of His death and resurrection which paid for all our sins and promises eternal life to all believers. As we remember our loved ones who have died in the faith today, let us also remember what the Word of God teaches us about them. They are with the Lord in bliss. Jesus will raise them up on the Last Day. And until then, we are united with them every time we take Communion. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.