1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. Happy All Saints’ Day. Our Lutheran Confessions in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession article 21 suggests that it’s helpful to remember the saints of God for three reasons: first, to give thanks to God for them; second, that our faith would be strengthened by their example; and, third, that we would be moved to follow their example of faith and virtue. All Saints’ Day is the day we do all these, not so much for well-known or hero saints, but rather for our own saints, the ones we personally know and remember. Our Lutheran churches often verbally recall the members who have departed unto heaven in the previous year and rest from their labors. It is therefore not merely a day of encouragement but also one of thankful grieving. The message today is entitled, “The Blessings of the Saints,” and it’s taken from Psalm 149. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. I’m very thankful that our Hymn of the Day is “For All the Saints Who from Their Labors Rest” and not “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Singing “For All the Saints” on All Saints’ Day often brings a sweet and joyful tear to my eye as we remember loved ones who’ve gone to heaven before us. There’s beautiful Gospel and comfort in the hymn that a New Orleans jazz number just doesn’t deliver. But Louis Armstrong and the boys get it right on this line: “Yes, I want to be in that number when the saints go marching in.” I want to be in that number! We want to be in the number of the saints! Our text today, Psalm 149, takes a decidedly upbeat view of the saints on this All Saints’ Day. That’s because the saints of God are so blessed in this life and in the next!
3. Let’s see some of those blessings promised to the saints that our text lays out, reasons we want to be in that number. “The Lord takes pleasure in the saints” (Psalm 149:4a). This is present tense in the original. Therefore, it applies to all of you saints. Consider this deeply. The Lord takes pleasure in you. This means, among other things, that you make him happy. Notice, it’s not that you will make him happy, someday, when you’re in heaven and don’t have sins, but rather that you make him happy now. After all, this is exactly why Christ died for you, to make you delightful and perfect. And God has already baptized you into Jesus’ death—to make you his own and bring you into his home by adoption and delight in you. This applies also to all “his people,” including the saints from our parish who have gone to heaven this year. We know that you delighted in these dear brothers and sisters in Christ, and you miss them. But God delights in them even more through Christ.
4. “The Lord takes pleasure in his people,” the psalmist says (Ps 149:4). Isn’t that remarkable! That God has so washed us in the blood of Christ, so renewed us in the Holy Spirit, that he is pleased with us sinners. In fact, that we are able to do things that please him! C. S. Lewis’s little essay called “The Weight of Glory” illustrates this in a student’s joy in her teacher’s pleasure. Lewis points out that childlike faith isn’t conceited but does take great joy at being praised or complimented. Sin easily contorts this joy into arrogance or contention, but the joy itself is good! On reflecting on his own childhood experiences with teachers praising him, Lewis recalls one moment, which he says was very brief, when just perhaps the delight he felt in pleasing his teacher wasn’t selfish but was pure. There can be something entirely good in the feeling we receive from praise for pleasing someone whom we rightly fear and love (The Weight of Glory [HarperOne: New York, 2001], 25–46).
5. That small moment Lewis experienced, fleeting though it was, might give us a glimpse of the day when we finally stand before Christ and he declares to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” (Matt. 25:23) After all, we can enter heaven only as a child, so we should not let false humility rob us of God’s gift of being treated as children, of being praised by our loving Father. Amazing thought! That’s the praise we will receive on the Last Day! And yet, already now, the Lord Jesus is no less pleased with us through faith than he will be then or ever. We are already saints, and this is the joy of being one of God’s saints!
6. The Lord will beautify the saints’ affliction by giving them salvation. Psalm 149:4 says, “he adorns the humble with salvation.” This is future tense, so it does not yet apply to us, at least not fully. Our affliction might indeed include all the suffering that we endure in this brief life. But, “affliction” in the Old Testament most often indicates one’s distress over one’s own sin and failure. It is the Law that afflicts them. They are burdened by a longing to be morally perfect now, to be free from their constant sinning and their addictions. Those who are afflicted are what we often call in theology “the repentant.” They know and feel their sins and long for relief.
7. Jesus speaks of this in our Gospel: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Mt 5:6). I do not think this is justification. Christians here and now are perfectly righteous through faith, but they are not perfectly righteous in their lives the way they want to be. For that, they wait. Jesus says “they shall be satisfied.” In heaven, they will have what they want. They will be free of the constant and nagging affliction of their flesh. They will be satisfied. But, for now, they merely hunger and thirst for this, waiting in hope. This longing affliction should not surprise us. The psalmist acknowledges it. Jesus teaches it. St. Paul lamented it, he writes in Rom 7:19, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” For now, we are the afflicted.
8. But this blessing does presently apply to the saints in heaven. It is true that they are now free of bodily and worldly afflictions. Revelation 7:16–17 says, “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” But the greatest affliction from which they have been “saved” is the affliction of their sinning. The old Adam has been drowned for the last time. The flesh doesn’t lure them. The demons cannot tempt them. While they were here communing with us at this rail, they were free from guilt by divine declaration, but now at the heavenly banquet, they are free in fact.
9. The psalmist here describes this as “beautifying” them or “adorning” them. They have their robes washed in the blood of Christ (Rev 7:14). Remember that the prodigal son was received back by his father not with mere feasting and joy but also with “the best robe,” “a ring on his hand,” and “shoes on his feet” (Lk 15:22). Take courage. Their present condition is our future hope.
10. The Lord makes the saints joyful in their glorious standing (v 5a). Psalm 149:5 says, “Let the godly exult in glory.” The saints of God are honored, glorified, by God in Jesus Christ. Through faith, Christians are glorified or honored by God. He speaks well of them in Christ. God is pleased with them. The reason a man or woman is called a saint, holy, is the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. In this status, God profoundly honors them. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18). God will reveal his glory in us. He will honor us.
11. That is amazing enough, but God also calls upon us here to rejoice in this reality. He desires for us to be happy about our honored position. Not embarrassed. Not saying, “Oh me! I’m just a rotten old sinner.” Not sad because I keep sinning and should be able to figure this out.
12. The Lord makes the saints to rest with singing (v 5b). The end of Psalm 149:5 says, “let them sing for joy on their beds.” “Their beds” are where they return after their day’s labor or a battle. At present, we don’t always sing for joy on our beds, but rather weep (Ps 6:6–7). But the saints in heaven do now rest from their labors (Rev 14:13). The psalmist says that they shall “sing for joy.” They rest from their labors, but they do not rest from their singing! Our present songs are some mixture of joy and tears, but their tears have been wiped away. Only songs of joy remain.
13. I don’t know which songs God’s saints actually sing in heaven. But isn’t it wonderful to know that Christ, by his cross, has made us holy so we’ll be in that number! Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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