On All Saints Sunday we commemorate those who have gone before us in the faith. We are thus reminded that the church is made up of the living and the dead, and that the church is always both the church triumphant and the church militant. Our focus on those who have gone before us and are at rest, therefore, is not an exercise in mere remembrance of those who are dead and gone; rather, we celebrate our ongoing partnership with the faithful departed and rejoice in the life they have been granted in the risen Christ. What we celebrate, in other words, is the completion and fulfillment of baptism as baptism is our incorporation into the death and resurrection of Christ. It is only at death that the promise of baptism is fulfilled fully and completely. Thus on this All Saints Sunday we celebrate the hope and the promise of what Jesus said in the Beatitudes. With respect to those who have died in the faith of Christ, Jesus’ words are filled with comfort and hope, while for those who still struggle to live out their faith, for whom each day is a dying and rising with Christ, the Beatitudes offer encouragement for that daily struggle.

In his famous commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, Luther said the following about the Beatitudes—his words are directed especially at us, the church militant, the church that continues to struggle to live out its faith in the world: “All these statements,” he says, “are aimed and directed against the world’s way of thinking, the way it would like to have things. It does not want to endure hunger, trouble, dishonor, unpopularity, injustice, and violence; and it calls ‘blessed’ those who can avoid all these things. So he [Christ] says here that there must be another life than the life of their quests and thoughts, and that a Christian must count on sorrow and mourning in the world” [LW 21.17-18].

Luther takes seriously what is the obvious and clear context of the Beatitudes in Matthew’s gospel. It is also what lies behind our first reading from Revelation. That context is the persecution of the church. The stark reality of persecution—persecution specifically because of one’s faith—is dealt with directly in the concluding two Beatitudes we have before us today—“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” and “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you on my account.” And as I say, the persecution of the church is also right at the heart and center of the reading from Revelation—“These are they who have come out of the great ordeal.”

Luther said that the persecution of the church is the worst kind of persecution there is, because by persecuting the church, the world’s aim is to defame the church’s good name. A good name is by far the hardest thing to lose, for by defaming the church’s good name, the legitimacy of the church is taken away. “Though other people must also suffer persecution, violent and unjust treatment, still men are willing to let them keep their reputation and good name. So this is not yet really Christian suffering, which requires not merely all sorts of tortures and troubles, but more; their good name must be spit upon and slandered, and the world must boast loudly that in murdering the Christians it has executed the worst kind of criminal, whom the earth could no longer carry, and that it has done God the greatest and most acceptable service…Thus no name has ever appeared on earth so slanderous and disreputable as the name ‘Christian.’ No nation has ever experienced so much bitter opposition and attack by wicked and poisonous tongues as have the Christians” [LW21.49].

The reason for this persecution, Luther says, is because the church, by its very existence and by virtue of its mission, provokes the devil, denying him his legitimacy and power. The church endures persecution, therefore, because the devil is not going to go down without a fight. In fact, for the devil it is a struggle for his very survival. That’s why, according to Luther, the devil rages. That’s why the church is always at risk. “It you want to have the Gospel and Christ,” Luther says, “then you must count on having trouble, conflict, and persecution wherever you go. Reason: because the devil cannot bear it otherwise, nor will he stop egging people on against the Gospel, so that the world is incensed against it….So do not hope for any peace and quiet so long as Christ and His Gospel are in the midst of the devil’s kingdom” [LW 21.51, 52). The church encounters opposition from without and internal dissension and disarray within, because the devil, whose very life is threatened by the Gospel, is fighting for his very survival. The trouble and persecution that plague the church are thus, according to Luther, actually hopeful signs of the Gospel’s impending victory over sin, death, and the power of evil.

Of course, all this talk about the devil sounds so quaint and medieval. When we think about temptation and sin, persecution and hardship, we seldom think of the devil. We usually think of natural phenomena and of our weakness in the face of forces beyond our control. Perhaps, then, we should think about the last century, where there was so much horrendous suffering and tragedy. There was a constant succession of terrible and bloody wars in which millions of innocent people suffered. There were genocides, mass dislocation, grinding poverty, widespread famine and horrible natural disasters. It’s hard to think, given this recent and continuing history that evil has is not actually set loose in the world to wreak havoc, to cause pain and suffering, and to inflict huge losses, especially against the innocent. We might not know the devil, but we have certainly come face to face with real, palpable evil.

That’s why I think the scene in Revelation of the multitude standing before the throne and the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands, actually provides a concrete hope for us who normally do not think in medieval terms. Who are these robed in white? They are those who have come out of the great ordeal. They are the millions of innocent ones, the victims of our hubris and of monstrous evil beyond our control. We can name thousands, indeed millions, who have endured great and terrible ordeals. All you have to do is visit the WWII monument or the Holocaust Museum. The church suffers the attacks of the devil and endures persecution on their behalf. The church points to the Lamb, who suffered unspeakable shame and violence for them especially. What is said, therefore, about Christian martyrs we can apply also, I think, to all those who suffer monstrous evil: “They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

On this day we celebrate the triumph of hope and life over all the forces of evil, sin, and death. It is a promise and a vision that can give us comfort in our personal sufferings, but also the strength to meet the challenges of the collective suffering as the church that must encounter opposition and persecution from those who are threatened by the Gospel of Life. Our faith is in him who was acquainted with our sufferings, sorrow and grief. He endured our pain and experienced our death. As the true Passover lamb, who sacrificed his life so that his people could live, he is also the shepherd, who will lead all his beloved people to springs of the water of life. He leads us to baptism and thus promises that we shall come out of the great ordeal. In this baptismal life we lead the way for all those others whose unspeakable suffering will be overcome in Jesus’ victory over death.

-Amen-