All Saints Day

November 1 2026 AD
Preacher: Rev. Philip Meyer

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SOLI DEO GLORIA!

Whenever we confess the Apostles’ Creed, we speak these words of the third article: “I believe in .. . the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints.” The original text uses the Greek word catholic with a small “c.” It means universal, world-wide.

Those words define the three-way focus of this commemoration.

I. THE PAST

All Saints’ Day begins with a backward look. We remember the saints. In the Lutheran Church, the Evangelical Church, we readily recognize the four Evangelists as well as the Apostles. It might interest you to know that the most common name for Lutheran congregations world-wide is St. Mary’s. But unlike the Church of Rome, once we get beyond these saints we find a certain reluctance to identify particular saints. But Lutherans are not pikers when it comes to naming the saints of old. Look at hymns 517 and 518 in your hymnal and you’ll see that there are 28 stanzas for saints, some stanzas doubled up, such as Sts. Timothy and Titus. At our local German Klub in Terre Haute I was able to begin an annual remembrance of St. Boniface. He brought Christianity to the Germans. We remembered him with a prayer and an enthusiastic “Prost!” For this the Lutherans and Roman Catholics agreed!

I imagine that there are photos of Our Saviour congregation at worship seventy five years ago. A photo taken from the back of the nave would reveal pews filled with people. Some of those people we might remember, perhaps relatives. Then add the good folks from St. Matthew and you would have a larger crowd than we typically have on a Sunday morning. There might even be a “Pastor’s Gallery” somewhere in the building. Immanuel Terre Haute has one of those galleries in the church library. There would be nine pastors whose photos are on the wall, not counting the current pastor.

Yet, people and pastors come and go. What struck me after my 40 years at Immanuel, as an Emeritus sitting in the pew, was how many families from the founding fathers have completely disappeared. Names of families with 8 or 9 children are gone. Only a handful remain. People die, move away, leave the church, or simply disappear. The congregation in which I was born closed almost 20 years ago. The congregation in which I grew up today has about the same attendance as Our Savior. Another city congregation has merged with St. Mark. The saints are still there but are few in number.

Some congregations wither and die. In rural areas many small congregations cannot sustain themselves. Some merge and some simply disband due to lack of members. The Lutheran Witness Reporter has such announcements every month. It happens in big cities, too. I’m a daily reader of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. While I read about my favorite teams, I confess that I also look through the obituaries. I suppose that many elderly people do. One humorist once said that he read the obituaries every day just to see if his name was there! Pittsburgh has a very large Roman Catholic population and many parishes have been closed and many others have been merged with two or three parishes using one sanctuary. I admit that there are some parishes with names of saints I’ve never heard! Some are patron saints of nations or cities. That’s understandable. It’s hard to tell the players without a scorecard! One of the sanctuaries is now a restaurant and bar. The vats for the beer are in what was once the chancel. It was de-commissioned as a holy place, thank God! But the name of the restaurant/pub is “The Church.” I have a cobalt blue beer glass from it. The logo is a stained glass window.

Please understand that the holy Christian church does NOT die! Even the gates of hell cannot destroy her. And by the way, the Holy Christian Church is never an “it,” but a “she,” the Bride of Christ. There are still saints hearing the Word of God and receiving the Sacraments. In spite of the fact that times change and situations change there is always the holy Christian Church, which is the communion of saints.

So, it’s sometimes hard to look back when other congregations are embarking on building programs because they’re bursting at the seams and our Saviour struggles.

Today we remember those who are in the nearer presence of Christ, who have lived and died in the confession of the Name of Christ. They may be famous or completely unknown. The only thing that matters is that they have confessed Christ as the only payment for their sins. They were baptized into the death AND resurrection of Christ. It’s all forward looking.

All Saints’ Day is really a time for giving thanks for the faithful who have gone on before us to the nearer presence of Christ and to imitate their example-of faithfulness. It’s a time to rejoice because important things stay the same. Change has no effect on the on what happens here. The Gospel is proclaimed and the sacraments are administered and God the Holy Spirit is present each Divine Service whether there are 25 or 250 present. Christ is the same and changes not. The Church will remain forever.

II. THE PRESENT

Just who are the saints? How does one get to be a saint? There’s quite a contrast between Lutherans and Roman Catholics on this! While the Roman Church confesses the holy catholic [universal] church, it denotes two categories.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has the following on its website:

In official Church procedures there are three steps to sainthood: a candidate becomes “Venerable,” then “Blessed” and then “Saint.” Venerable is the title given to a deceased person recognized formally by the pope as having lived a heroically virtuous life or offered their life. To be beatified and recognized as a Blessed, one miracle acquired through the candidate’s intercession is required in addition to recognition of heroic virtue or offering of life. Canonization requires a second miracle after beatification. The pope may waive these requirements. A miracle is not required prior to a martyr’s beatification, but one is required before canonization.

Got that? By this definition you and I aren’t saints. We haven’t performed the required healing miracles through our intercessions nor have we performed miracles. I’ve never known one who has! In fact, we’re sinners with lots of sins. We have much to confess. We haven’t lived heroic virtuous lives. It is correct to say that the Church is full of sinful saints and saintly sinners. We Lutherans use a Latin phrase from the Confessions: we are simul justus et peccator. That is, we are justified and sinner at the same time. We are not completely holy in this earthly life. Heaven is not gained by our virtues but only by Christ’s.

So, how do we Lutherans define a saint? This short definition from the Smalkald Articles from our Book of Concord say it simply:

Thank God, <today> a seven-year-old child knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd [John 10:11-16] For the children pray, “I believe in one holy Christian Church.” This holiness does not come from albs, tonsures, long gowns, and other ceremonies they made up without Holy Scripture, but from God’s Word and true faith. [McCain, P. T., ed. (2005). Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (p. 283). Concordia Publishing House.]

You and I became saints when we were baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. We put on Christ. The Holy Spirit has brought us into the holy Christian Church. We become holy through a foreign, or alien, righteousness, namely through that of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is given through faith and thus becomes our own. In short, holiness, that is, the forgiveness of sins, is a gift, not something earned through holy works.

III. THE FUTURE

We looked at the saints in the past and in the present, so what is left is the future. We have a nifty word for that—eschatology. Eschaton comes from the Greek, which means the end times, the last day. Most people look with dread if we talk about the end of the world as we know it. They sometimes call it “Doom’s Day,” a day to be feared.

But why should it be feared if one is in the holy Christian Church? The Christian does not fear that day because it is the day that our Lord will return to reap the harvest of those who have confessed him in this present age and served him with holy works.

About those 28 stanzas of the hymn, “By All Your Saints in Warfare,” the last clause of each stanza points to heaven, like this one for St. Bartholomew, Apostle:

That by Your truth made guileless,
Your glory we may see. [LSB 518.23]

We know that a picture is worth a thousand words. A week ago last Thursday at the Lutheran Books and Bier I suggested some artwork to Paul for our bulletin cover: “The Adoration of the Lamb,” a Polyptych by Jan van Eyck and Hubert van Eyck, which is the altar piece in St Bavo’s Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. I began telling Paul where he could find the artwork online, but before I could finish, he said, “Yeah, we were just there. I have photos.” Excellent! My only regret is that the artwork is much more extensive than can be shown on a bulletin cover, but what is important is the Lamb and what we see around him, namely, the saints of all ages, of every tribe, people, and times. It is a picture of heaven itself.

The Church on earth and the Church in heaven. That’s what we’ve been looking at so far, but the question is sometimes asked: Are there, then, two churches, one on earth and the other in heaven? The third article of the Nicene Creed answers that for us:

And I believe in one holy Christian and Apostolic Church

One holy Church! One of the great hymns of Christendom answers for us. We have siug it. “For All the Saints,” a glorious summary of what today is:

Oh, blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

So the past, the present, and the future come together today and every Sunday. In the words of the Preface to the Holy Communion you hear the words spoken or chanted: “Therefore, with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious name, evermore praising Thee and saying …”

And follows The Sanctus—”Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of Sabaoth …”

And at that moment the curtain between time and eternity is pulled back! The organ should play with all stops pulled! It is the musical high point of the Service of the Sacrament! In Praetorius’ Lutheran Mass for Christmas Morning, the Sanctus based on Isaiah 6, is a full 6 minutes long and 25 seconds! A more glorious Sanctus you will never hear! It begins quietly and continues with antiphonal singing until the cathedral organ thunders the closing words of the prophet Isaiah, as Luther renders them in his hymn,

“His glory fills the heavens and the earth!”
The beams and lintels trembled at the cry,
And clouds of incense wrapped the throne on high.”
[LSB 960 with amendment]

And our voices join with all the angels, archangels, and the saints who are in the nearer presence of Christ! For a brief moment it is literally heaven on earth! We join with all the saints who have gone before us, the well-known saints, the unknown saints, as well as our loved ones who have departed this life in the faith. With them we are all ONE CHURCH united in praising him who was and who is and who is to come!

Truly this is a blessed celebration! We are not alone, no matter how few our numbers, but those that no one can number join with us in celebrating the beatific vision of what shall someday belong to us! God grant it for Christ’s sake!!

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.