All Saints Day (Observed) [Ephesians 1:11-23] (3 November 2013)

This sermon was preached at St. John's Lutheran, Karoonda (9 am) and Trinity Lutheran, Tailem Bend (11 am).  

I wouldn't want to take credit for something I didn't have anything to do with. No, wait, of course I would. Winter Olympics watch: in just a few months they'll start and we'll be reminded again of the speed skater who got the gold only because every other skater had fallen down. He knows he doesn't take any credit for that. And Christians should know not to take credit for their salvation before God so that they can beat despair. Because the only way to beat despair is with something stronger than despair. Only the true Gospel does that.

All glory be to God the Father, whose Son shed his blood for all his saints.

All glory to God. That sentence doesn't exist outside of the blood of Christ shed for you. St. Paul says, “In him [Christ] we have obtained an inheritance”. That means that outside of him is a different inheritance. Outside of him is the inheritance from Adam, is the fall of Adam and Eve. They have given you the inheritance of their sin and their death, and their desire to listen to the devil's words more than God's.

St. Paul says, “having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will”. Outside of the will of the Father (and the will of the Father is to send you his dear Son), outside of that will is your will. And your will wants the glory. Oh, maybe not all the glory. Jesus helps. He does most of the work. But in the end, it's really up to you to do . . . something. It's up to you to be a good Christian, good enough for Jesus to help you the rest of the way to your salvation. Good enough to get a little of the glory, which is just what your will wants. But as Paul says, it's not your will that works your predestination for this inheritance, but his will.

St. Paul writes that the heavenly Father works all things according to his will, “so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. ¹³ In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit”. But that means that outside of Christ is false hope, false praise, and a false word. You can set your hope, your eternal hope, your highest hope, you can place it outside of God, but that doesn't agree with the abundance of God's mercy for you that Paul writes. That takes away all glory from God. You can praise God, but if it's not praise because your hope is in Christ, then you're keeping a little of the glory for yourself. It's like when you praise a favorite band: “oh yeah, they're really great, and I knew they were great long before anyone else did.” You just found a way to praise yourself. You can hear a word that isn't truth. This word doesn't want to know of Jesus, or wants to know of a Jesus who isn't enough. This word sounds good enough to your heart, because if Jesus isn't good enough to hope in, then maybe if you add your good works, maybe if you add your feelings and experiences, then it will be enough. But this too robs Christ of all glory, and makes his blood something else.

You see, at the very time that Paul is listing all of God's great gifts and blessings through Christ our Lord, he's reminding the church that these are gifts and blessings, that they exist apart from the Church and have to come from outside the Church to the Church, as a gift. Paul reminds the congregation of their lives before the Gospel. All sinners are born lacking this grace of God, of God looking at you in mercy for Jesus' sake. God saves you from all this, calls you out of it, exposes it for what it is: the sin of having other gods, either obviously having them, or very subtly having them. The devil, after all, tells lies that are very subtle.

But Paul doesn't remind the Church of her life outside the Gospel of Christ crucified to stop at that. He does it to praise God for all that he has done for the Church. He does it to give all glory to our Father through Christ his dear Son. He does it to fight despair with the Gospel, through faith in that Gospel. “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, ¹⁷ that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, ¹⁸ having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹ and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might”

This is where we celebrate the Feast of All Saints. And we do it by believing the Gospel. “For all the saints who from their labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed. Thy name O Jesus be forever blessed. Alleluia, alleluia.”

This is the inheritance, and it is a heavenly inheritance, not from Adam, but from the new Adam who gives an inheritance not of sin and death and listening to the devil, but an inheritance of holiness, eternal life, and listening to his holy Word. This inheritance is given you in your Baptism, as you are joined by faith there to the One who shed his blood for you. And not just for you. The might of the Father is the might “he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places”. And Christ has delivered this eternal life to the Church on earth and in heaven, and will deliver it on the day of resurrection.

And this is the new will. It is not your will, but the will of Christ which you receive as a gift. It is the will that doesn't want what sin, death, and the devil have to sell, but only what Christ wishes to give for free – and that is forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. It is the will that daily repents of all sin, as we daily pray in Luther's evening prayer.

This is the true hope, the true praise, and the true word of those who need Christ's blood and cross. That is, your hope is the cross, your praise is the cross, and the Word that is for you is the word of the cross.

This is how we celebrate All Saints day, by giving thanks for the Gospel that sustained all the saints against despair, and will continue to do so as long as there is the Church on earth (which will be until the Last Day). But we also take the time on All Saints day to remind ourselves how Christians mourn the death of Christians. As Christians we grieve with the sure and certain hope of the resurrection. With the shock of death comes acceptance, with sadness comes joy, with anger and frustration comes trust, with regret comes forgiveness, and with loneliness comes comfort.

But above all this is the glory – what Christ has done by his cross through his Word, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper. This is the glory, that Christ is seated “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. ²² And he [the Father] put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, ²³ which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

Conclusion: And so the saints live. All of them. All glory is to the Father, who sent his Son for your salvation. All glory is to the Son, whose blood frees the saints from all sin, from all death, from all despair of the devil. All glory is to the Spirit, who keeps the whole Christian Church with Christ in the one true faith. There's no glory left over for us, and that's a good thing. Glory to God alone. Amen.