Revelation 7:9-17 All of us have experienced saying
goodbye to a loved one: a child going
off to college—a family member returning home after the holidays—a friend moving
to a new city. We watch them drive down the street until we
can’t see them anymore. Then they’re gone. Not gone forever—just separated from us for a
time.
We realize that
just because we can’t see them, it doesn’t mean that they have ceased to
exist. Their life goes on and ours does
too and we look forward to that day when we will see them again.
So it is when we
say goodbye to a loved one who dies in Christ.
We are parted from them for a time—but they have not left us
forever. We can’t see them anymore but
that doesn’t mean that their life does not continue on. As we observe All Saints Day, God pulls back
the curtain that hides our departed loved ones from our sight and lets us view their life in heaven—and our life to come. St.
John writes:
I looked, and behold,
a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes
and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb,
clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with
a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the
Lamb!”
When
we say goodbye to a child who goes off to college or a loved one who returns
home after a holiday or a friend who moves to a new town, we may be lonely—but they are not all alone. There is a hole in our life, but they have
more friends.
So it is when our
loved ones die. They are not all alone—they
are with fellow believers. They are
welcomed into heaven by a great multitude of people who have shared the same
faith and worshiped the same God and gone through the same earthly difficulties
and trials.
While we are sad
to see them go—they are filled with joy as they add their voices to that great
hymn of praise to their Savior God.
When we say our
final goodbye to a loved one, our thoughts are often turned to them—we look
back at the life we had with them—we are lonely for them and mourn for them—but
the focus of their lives is not what
is past, but the Lamb who shed his blood for them and brought them safely home just- as- he- promised.
When sin and death
entered into the world, God promised that he would restore what man had
destroyed—that he would send a Savior who would conquer the devil and
death. Over salvation history, God
renewed this promise again and again. He
told the patriarchs that their descendants would be so great that no one could
number them.
God kept his
promise. He sent his Son as a
sacrificial Lamb whose blood set us free from sin and death and as St. John
looked upon that great multitude of saved sinners he could not count them all. But because they cannot be counted-- that
does not mean that they cannot be recognized.
In that great
multitude are your loved ones who trusted in Jesus and now stand in his
presence giving him thanks and praise for their salvation. And not only do they give him their thanks and praise, they are joined in that song
of praise by the whole company of heaven. St. John
writes that:
All the angels were
standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures,
and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying,
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and
might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
The
sad story of mankind’s fall into sin and death is not just the story of Adam
and Eve’s disobedience—it is also the story of an angelic rebellion—a war in heaven. The Bible does not go into great detail about
this rebellion but what we know is that before the creation of man, God created
the angels and some of those angels rebelled against him and made the
destruction of man their goal so that Satan tempted Adam and Eve to sin against
God and evil entered into the world.
Though the devil
won that battle, God promised that Satan would not win the war—but that God
would send the Seed of the Woman, Mary’s Son Jesus, to destroy the devil and
have the final victory.
From that moment
on in salvation history we see the heavenly angels doing their part to bring
about God’s saving purpose. They visited
God’s people to comfort them. They waged
war against God’s enemies. They served
as God’s messengers to announce his salvation.
That salvation was
accomplished when Jesus rose up from the dead and the angels were right there
to tell the world that God had kept his promise and destroyed the power of
death and the devil.
We have to be
careful not to go beyond the Bible but I think it is fair to say that it must
have been crushing to the good angels to know that some of their fellow angels
had destroyed all the good God had created.
They must have yearned for Christ’s victory!
What we can say
with certainty. is that all of the heavenly host—angels and archangels,
seraphim and cherubim, the elders and the four living creatures have joined
with all of God’s redeemed people around the throne of the Lamb to thank and
praise God for his mighty work of salvation.
Can you just
imagine the joy of our loved ones in heaven being in the presence of these
heavenly beings, who though unseen, were beside them each step of the way on
life’s journey, fighting on their behalf, so that they would reach their
heavenly home paid for by the blood of the Lamb? St. John
writes that:
One of the elders
addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where
have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are
the ones coming out of the great tribulation.”
In
our sermon hymn we sang these words about our departed loved ones who stand
around the throne of the Lamb: Despised and scorned they sojourned here-but
now how glorious they appear. Despised
and scorned.
The fall into sin
has made life on this earth a hardship that God never intended. Earthly toil is a hardship rather than a
joy. Bringing forth new life involves
suffering. There is conflict with those
closest to us. And finally there is
death. We go through life with trials
and tribulation. It seems that sin and
defeat are the last word about us.
But our departed
loved ones in heaven are depicted with palm branches in their hands and are
clothed in white robes. Waving palm
branches was an ancient custom to welcome a conquering king and the white robes
a sign of holiness and purity. And so…
How do our loved ones
come to possess this sign of righteousness and what victorious King do they
praise? St. John tells us: They
have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. That is one of the most powerful images in
the Bible and it is meant to be because it portrays the greatest truth of the
Bible!
Those who are
delivered from earthly tribulation into the joys of heaven—those who can stand
unashamed before the throne of the true and living God—those who can celebrate
their King’s victory—are those who have washed their robes in the blood of the
Lamb.
In other words, it
is those who have put their faith and trust in Christ’s death on the cross for
their salvation, who are there in heaven with God.
St. John tells us about that heavenly life
that our departed loved ones are enjoying right now-- and the life that we too
will live in heaven.
“They are before the
throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on
the throne will shelter them with his presence.
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.”
When
we say goodbye to a loved one, whether it is a loved one moving to a new place
or when we say our last goodbyes, there are tears that we shed. There is no shame in that and neither is it a
sign of a lack of faith. Jesus wept at
the graveside of Lazarus and the Bible says that we grieve—but not as though
who have no hope—because the tears that we shed, ARE NOT shed, by our departed
loved ones.
When they depart
from us they enter into the joys of heaven and God wipes away their tears and
they never experience hardship or sorrow again.
Life for them is the way that God meant it to be—a life in his presence
where there is only peace and plenty.
That is so
important for us to remember! Often
times our last moments with a loved one are painful—illness or an accident or
just the frailty of old age has done its ugly work and that thought burdens us
and stays with us.
But God pulls back
the curtain to heaven on this All Saints Sunday because he wants us to lift up
our eyes from that sorrowful scene and feast our eyes on what is really true
for those we love who have gone home to heaven:
no more sorrow—no more suffering—no more trial or tribulation of any
kind-- for they are safely home.
Unless the Lord
comes first, all of us will one day say goodbye to this earthly life and
goodbye to our loved ones we leave behind.
But that is not the last word for us and it is nothing to fear because
salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb and he has given it to us as a
free gift of his grace so that we would live with him in heaven forever.
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