Thou saint [Feast of All Saints; St. Matthew 5:1-12]

Jesus speaks today, in your hearing:

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

It is no small thing that All Saints day is celebrated with White, symbolizing the resurrection, and the Reformation celebrated in place of a dark day of Hallow’s Eve. For, the people that in darkness sat, did so without the Gospel and without an understanding of justification by faith alone.

Thus, we have the light of All Saints in opposition to the darkness of sin; the promise of the Resurrection of all the dead set against the necessity for thick books of Concord and closed communion; the true light of Christ set in opposition to the Law.

And that light is heard in our Small Catechism where we say that it is the work of the Holy Ghost to call you by the Gospel, enlighten you with His gifts, and sanctify and keep you in the one, true faith. This doctrine points to the Beatitudes.

Jesus opens His mouth to teach His disciples. And contrary to all popular belief and teaching on the Beatitudes, they are about Jesus. They are not simply about Jesus, but they are only about Jesus, even though He speaks in the plural, which we’ll get to in a bit.

For now, Jesus is He who is poor in spirit. He is stricken, smitten, and afflicted for no sin of His own. He is abandoned and forsaken, even by God upon the cross. Jesus mourns, not just for His own city, but for you in your fatal sins.

Jesus is meek and mild, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Mt.11:29). Jesus hungers. Jesus thirsts on the cross. Jesus is Righteousness itself, thus He is merciful, pure, and the creator of peace.

And for His own sake; rather, for His Name’s sake, He allows Himself to be persecuted to death. Reviled, falsely accused, and hung on a great evil tree, Jesus’ truly is the Son of God inheriting all His Father has prepared beforehand, for Him. Thus far the Beatitudes.

See what kind of love the Father has for Jesus! Not only do you get to see and follow Jesus to the cross, but that you, too, call Him Father and see the God of all Life emptying Himself, for His Name’s sake in order that He justify all by grace, through faith, for the sake of Christ.

This is so, because nothing is impossible for God. It is not impossible for God to become a man, suffer, and die yet still retain the title of Almighty and Ever living. It is not impossible for God to be so weak that crucifixion could kill Him and yet still be found as the Lord of heaven and earth. In fact, it would be impossible for God to call Himself sovereign if He did not do so.

It would also not do, for God to leave you in corruption. It would also not do for God to lose even one of whom He has called. Nothing is impossible for God.

Only a sinner can be a saint and it seems that Jesus has an entire race of sinners that find themselves not so poor, not so mournful, not so meek, not so hungry, not so merciful, not so pure, and not so peaceful.

Dear saints at St. Luke, The Feast day of All Saints does not just celebrate those who have died in the faith who you will meet again; it does not just celebrate your own blessings. All Saint’s Day celebrates Christ and Him crucified, in which you hear of the righteousness of God and His love for the Son.

Being baptized into the Son, you find the great love of God directed at you, for the sake of Jesus. Blessed are you, for you are children of the most high. You are God’s children, NOW. This day. This moment. And you know, because Jesus is on the cross for you, that when He appears we shall be like Him, but even now, we are like Him. We are Christians.

Not just little lambs, but little Christs. You are now the sons who will inherit all the Father has created and recreated in His Son’s Name. Because you are justified in the sacraments the Holy Ghost gives, you are Christ-like: poor in spirit, mournful, meek, hungry and thirsty, merciful, pure, peaceful, and persecuted.

These Beatitudes describe Christ and now also describe you who are baptized into Christ. There is no distinction that the Father makes between you and Jesus. In Christ alone, these Beatitudes are promises Jesus is making to you; promises that He accomplishes and perfects, for you.

For you cannot by your own reason or strength come to Jesus nor can you believe in Him. With this impossibility to be overcome, the Lord of impossibles overcomes. In His Christian church on earth, the Holy Ghost daily and richly forgives all your sins and the sins of all believers, by faith alone.

Reason, strength, or action have nothing to do with your salvation and this is why: do you know why All Hallows Eve has become Halloween, a celebration of all things evil and dead? Because the world gets it. The world knows that, in order for all Saints to happen, there must first be evil and death.

So, more than Jesus declaring blessings to us in Christ as we remember the dead in faith, they are not dead! Christians do not remember the dead, but we remember the living. For behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a twinkling of an eye.

When that happens, then shall come to pass the saying, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (I Cor. 15)

The sting of death is stuck fast upon the cross of Christ and the victory has been stolen and given to us. Jesus is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living (Mt. 22:32). This takes place the moment you receive faith. This takes place the moment you receive salvation by faith alone.

You were once of the evening; dead in your sin and harboring the seat of all evil in your heart, and in baptism you died to that sin and evil.

And in the light of the dawning of this day, Christ has baptized you into His resurrection. Thus, you are dead, and yet you live. You are a sinner, and yet you are a saint. You suffer in your sin and the world’s sin here, yet there a place is already prepared for you.

A room in a mansion, furnished with milk and honey blest, where, on the table at the bedside, there is not a Gideon Bible, but a page from the Book of life. A souvenir, if you will, of when the Lamb of God read your name from it.

You hear it today as Jesus calls all of you to His Feast of forgiveness and salvation, with all the Saints, for by Faith alone you are justified. Nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification. It is not, in any way necessary that you be prepared and disposed by the movement of your own will.

It is only by Christ alone.