ALL SAINTS
Today’s feast of All Saints is,
beyond question, one of the most beloved holy days in the entire year. Why?
Part of the explanation is the encouragement All Saints Day gives us. It
assures us:
-- that the saints are far more numerous
than we often suppose;
-- that they support and encourage us
by their prayers;
-- that the saints are not only more numerous
than we suppose, but more ordinary.
1) “One hundred and
forty-four thousand. ... A great multitude which no one could count, from every
nation, race, people, and tongue.” The
number is symbolic: 12 (the number of fullness: 12 tribes of Israel
2) The saints are
not remote from us. We enjoy fellowship with them. The letter to the Hebrews,
after giving thumbnail sketches of the saints of the Old Testament in chapter
11, portrays them at the beginning of chap. 12 as spectators in an arena,
supporting and encouraging us who are running now the race they ran here on
earth. “Seeing, then, Hebrews says, “that
we are surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight,
and the sin which so easily drags us down; and let us look to Jesus, the
beginning and end of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured
the cross, despising its shame, and is now set down on the right hand of the
throne of God.”
3) The saints are
not remote figures in a stained glass window. They are real people of flesh and
blood. They faced all the difficulties we face. They never gave up. That was
their secret. The saints are just the sinners who kept on trying. Each time we
make a decision for Jesus Christ, we place ourselves on their side. The saints
centered their lives on the Lord. He was their strength in life, their
companion in death. He is the same for us. As long as we are trying to be true
to him, he will give us what he gave them: strength to live, and courage to
die.
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