All Saints' A, 2023

Todd Cook

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All Saints’ Sunday, Year A

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

There is always something to learn about God, about the Bible, about the Church… I certainly learned a good bit this week. Have you ever looked into how the Apostles died? The most famous is probably St. Peter, who insisted that if they were going to crucify him, it must be with his body upside-down, as he was not worthy to die in the same manner as his Lord and Savior. Most of the Twelve were killed for their faith as martyrs. The only one who didn’t was St. John. John died of natural causes sometime after the year AD 98. But apparently, it wasn’t that no one tried.

There are written stories about John that come from outside the Bible. One story about John describes “his memorable escape from martyrdom, when, according to tradition, he was cast into a cauldron of boiling oil but came out unharmed, his Master having determined that he was not by martyrdom to glorify His name.” [Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon Commentary: 1 John, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Spurgeon Commentary Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014), 1 Jn 3:1.] It is this same John who wrote both the first and second readings for today. Let’s focus on those three verses from the first letter of John.

The passage begins: “See what kind of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” Remember: this is the same author who wrote the fourth Gospel. This is the same hand who wrote Jesus’ words to the Pharisee Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. [Jn 3:16.] That is the kind of love the Father has given us: Agape (ἀγάπη) - the kind of love that is perfectly demonstrated by Jesus when he gave himself up to be killed for us and for our salvation. We often define ἀγάπη as “self-emptying” or “self-sacrificing” love. When John uses this word in his writings, particularly in the Gospel, he uses it specifically to speak of the love that the Father has for the Son. John also uses it to emphasize “the love of the Son for those whom the Father has given Him, for His ‘friends.’ Through the Son the love of God reaches the world of men… Through the death of the Son, God reaches His goal of salvation for the world.” [Kittel, 53]

For John, “ἀγάπη is quite explicitly condescending love,” which is to say it is one-way: from God down to us. And as real as God’s love for us is, it does its best work when it is revealed to and shared with others. Who does that revealing and sharing? Christians do. That means us - you and me. God’s “world of light and life is expressed in this world in the form of love” - ἀγάπη. This kind of love, as John understands it, is best seen in the life of Christ himself, but also in the active life of the Christians who have received it, and who are sharing it with the world around them. This love for our neighbors has its origin in the Father and its example in the Son. As it is then shared with the people of God through the Son, (who are then commanded to love God and neighbor - you can see a circle of love. This creates a Heavenly fellowship. Listen to how this scholar describes it: “The love of God is the final reality for the life of this fellowship, and abiding in His love is the law of its life.” [ibid.]

Now, when we began our worship this morning, we heard in the words of the Confession that God gives us “the power to become children of God.” That comes to us through the Son. That power *is* God’s love for us. Dr. Lenski tells us that in the Greek, the first sentence in 1 John 3 reads like this: “what love has given to us the Father.” The English doesn’t transpose it like that, so it loses its emphasis. Now we can better understand what this kind of love does for us. [Lenski, 449]

Ok, so that’s the first half of verse 1. Let’s keep going. “The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” Jesus himself tells us this in John 16:3 - the world does not know him. “The world sees that we are here and [therefore] knows us; but as ‘God’s children’ we are utterly foreign to the world because even our Father is utterly foreign to the world. The world has no [concept] of what we are as those who are born from God and [therefore] God’s actual children, and the deepest reason for this ignorance is the fact that it has no [concept] of our Father. The world is proud of its knowledge, but the real things worth knowing it does not know. The mystery of regeneration is foolishness in its eyes; those who are children of God in Christ [the world] considers deluded.” [Lenski, 450]

Have you ever argued with an atheist about your faith? They really and truly believe that we Christians are exactly that - deluded. They simply cannot grasp how we could possibly believe the words of a 2,000-year-old book, or believe in a God who - they claim - we cannot “see”. These people who make these arguments are the same people who John is writing about in his letter from the late first century AD. People who think Christians are deluded have been around as long as there have been God-fearing people.

Have you heard that we have a new Speaker of the House of Representatives. Congressman Mike Johnson from Louisiana. In his first week leading the House, he was asked about his world view. Here’s what he said: “...people are curious, ‘What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the Sun?’ I said, ‘Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it, that’s my worldview – that’s what I believe.’” [https://www.thewrap.com/mike-johnson-hannity-worldview-bible-video/] And you wouldn’t believe how fast the secular media pounced on that to denounce him as an “extremist”. And that’s the kindest of the adjectives they used.

The world does not know God. And the older I get, the more it seems to me that the world does not even want to know God. But that makes sense: it was the world and its un-God-ly values and priorities that crucified Christ. The world apparently didn’t want to know Him then, either.

Verse 2: 1 John 3:2 “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” In seminary we talked a great deal about the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’. This verse is a perfect example of what that deals with. We are already God’s children. That has already happened. But God’s not done. His promises to us are still yet to take place. We know that we have been saved, but we are not yet wearing the white robes of heaven. The crown of glory has not yet been placed on our heads. “But we know that when he appears” all of this will be made right. All of the promises will come true. All that we believe in… all that we trust in… all that we hope in… all of that will THEN take place. Our mortal bodies will become glorified, immortal bodies.

John describes all of what this will look like in Revelation 7. It will be a truly good and Godly thing to see; “…we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” When Jesus returns in glory, we expect him to return the same way that he ascended (Acts 1:9-10). His body was resurrected after death. He did not leave it in the tomb. His dead body was resurrected and then glorified and ascended. We’ve said before that this is a preview of the plan God has for all of us who believe. We shall see him as he is (his glorified body which ascended), and we shall be like him. No more dying, pain, disease, decay, illness… for eternity.

Brothers and sisters: this is where we put our hope. And this is why we use these readings on All Saints’ Day. Those we have loved and lost are not gone forever. We *will* see them again one day… on this day that John describes. When he says “we will be like him” - he means all of us. All of us will be resurrected from the dead, and we will be in fellowship again. Another word for that is “communion”. We will be together, glorified, in communion with God and each other for all eternity. All of us who believe. All those who “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” All of the saints.

1 John 3:3 “And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” Once more, the English loses something here. It sounds like “purifies” is done once. It’s not, because until that great day comes, we still battle against sin. It would be better translated as “And everyone having this hope (set) on him continues to purify himself even as that One is pure.” [Lenski, 453.] Continues to purify. It’s ongoing. And it’s important: “There is no exception. He who stops purifying himself has dropped this hope from his heart. ... We have a plain mark by which to judge ourselves. To claim that we are God’s children, who have been born of him, to claim the hope of heaven and glory and yet to stop self-purification is to be lying.” [Ibid., 453–454.]

But don’t think of this as a requirement for salvation; that’s not how God works. This is part of our response to being saved. It is a way to tell yourself if you’re still on the path of faith. If you’re not trying to be more like Christ, you need to be closer to Him. Pray to Him. Get back in His Word and spend more time in it. Confess your sins. Get the Sacrament. God will pull you back on the path.

Going back to the first word of the first verse in this reading: “see”. Those atheists who claim we cannot “see” God. We can see His love for us. For those of us who believe, we see it all the time. And “see” in the Greek means more than just visual perception.

I want to close with something I read from the great preacher Charles Spurgeon, who explains this meaning very well.

“This word ‘see’ is a word of wonder. John had lived among wonders. John’s life, from the time of his conversion, was a life of wonders, not only in what he saw with his natural eye, but in all the sights that the Lord gave him to see with his spiritual eye when he appeared to him in ‘the island called Patmos’ (Rev 1:9). His life was crowned with wonders in his memorable escape from martyrdom... If ever there was a seer among men to whom wonders became common things, it was John. Yet as he wrote this heavenly epistle, he could not help bursting out in exclamations of amazement such as do not generally come from writers so much as from speakers: ‘See,’ says he, ‘See what sort of love!’

“But this ‘see’ is also a note of instruction. It is as if the man of God said, “Stand still, and consider the extraordinary love of God.” Do not speak of it, for some of these things slip glibly from the tongue. Sit down, and ponder, and weigh, mark, and behold. See what sort of love. Here, take your glass, and look at it microscopically. Study it. Wonder at it. Study it with every faculty concentrated on it; you shall find new excellences in it every time you look into it. ‘See what sort of love’—the very manner of it is exceedingly sublime and adorable. Do not merely glance and go your way. Stop and rest, and pry into this secret, comparing this love with all other loves, and the manner of it with the manner of men. Come here, and dig where there are nuggets of pure gold to reward every moment of your industry. Sink your shafts here, and go into the depths to bring up this priceless treasure. See: read, mark, learn, inwardly digest, and still see again. Look, and look, and look on; there will be no end to the discoveries you will make. When you have looked, remember that you have not been gazing upon a mere appearance, but have beheld an actual fact: ‘See what sort of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God.’ When you have beheld this, then look again, and behold with equal admiration that it is no supposition, or fancy, or romance. The Lord calls us children, ‘and we are.’” [Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon Commentary: 1 John, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Spurgeon Commentary Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014), 1 Jn 3:1.]