Hope in the Saints of God

 Celebrating Faith in others and in ourselves   All Saints Sunday Nov 3

"It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation."  Isaiah 25:9

" A Christian knows that death shall be the funeral of all his sins, his sorrows, his afflictions, his temptations, his vexations, his oppressions, his persecutions. He knows that death shall be the resurrection of all his hopes, his joys, his delights, his comforts ,his contentments." Thomas Brooks . He (1608–1680) was an English non-conformist Puritan preacher and author.

“Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul

 And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all.”

EMILY DICKINSON

The Christian life has waiting and hope.  It has many other things in Isaiah, Revelation and John .

The Hebrew word for waiting is Transliteration: qavah

Phonetic Spelling: (kaw-vaw')

Definition: to wait for

Brown-Driver-Briggs

I. [קָוָה] verb wait for (probably originally twist, stretch, then of tension of enduring, waiting: Assyrian ‡ûû II, I. wait, ‡û, cord; Arabic  be strong,  strength, also strand of rope; Syriac  endure, remain, await,  threads, so ᵑ7 קַוִּין spider's threads, web); — Isaiah 25:9 " And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation."

A friend of mine wrote this, " This time every year I am glad to remember Susan and Nick, and the Communion of Saints...

Some years ago I pulled myself away from my family to lead the Christmas day service at church. It was my turn on our clergy rotation. The services the night before were fabulous, glorious with overflowing crowds, full orchestra and choirs, and high ceremonial. But Christmas day was different: a simple service with no music in the small chapel, mostly for those who were physically unable to make the Christmas eve extravaganza. I'm sad now to say that I was resentful to have to leave our small children on Christmas morning for what felt was a superfluous service.

It was as I expected when I arrived: just a handful of older people were gathered. I put on my clergy-face and plowed forward in the service. I got to the place in the liturgy where it says, "With angels and archangels and all the company of heaven we laud and magnify thy holy Name..." when I looked up to the back wall where the Columbarium was and like in a flash I remembered the many people/friends (including my good friend Susan Hawman who died the week before!) that I had buried over the years. I remembered the baby born with a genetic disorder, Nick, and later driving Jeremy to the mortuary with the dead baby in his arms. And the faces of all the others whose funerals I presided over came rushing at me. Suddenly I realized that we were not alone. We weren't just a motley crew of broken people hobbling along on Christmas morning; we were actually joining the ongoing chorus of worshippers in heaven who continually and gloriously praise God. Those who live in the praise of God! There were hundreds, thousands of us there that Christmas morning in the small chapel and at that moment I was overwhelmed and stopped the service for a minute to collect myself…

I'll never forget that as the day I discovered "The Communion of Saints," and how the veil that separates us and them is extremely thin. Today, whenever I reach that place in our Anglican liturgy, I remember that what we are doing is far more important than just what "we" are doing. We are joining in what God is doing and what the people who surround him in heaven and on earth are doing.

Christianity is not about me. Not really. It's about God and God inviting you and me to join him in his glorious plan to redeem all of creation. And it all begins when we join our voices with angels and all the company of heaven in the only things that matter for eternity."  Rev. Chuck Collins

2.  And death will be no more.  Revelation 21:4   " He will swallow up death in victory" Isaiah 25:8   ....and " the LORD God will wipe away tears off all faces..."

" And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes"  Rev. 21:4

" This new Jerusalem is the church of God in its new and perfect state, the church triumphant. Its blessedness came wholly from God, and depends on him. The presence of God with his people in heaven, will not be interrupt as it is on earth, he will dwell with them continually. All effects of former trouble shall be done away. They have often been in tears, by reason of sin, of affliction, of the calamities of the church; but no signs, no remembrance of former sorrows shall remain. Christ makes all things new"  Matthew Henry

He went on here," If we are willing and desirous that the gracious Redeemer should make all things new in order hearts and nature, he will make all things new in respect of our situation, till he has brought us to enjoy complete happiness. "

As John's Gospel says, " In Him was life"  1:4

This journey with God begins now ,when we know Him .  

3.  What is it to hope and to live in hope?

Mary and Martha waited at the tomb of Lazarus their brother ( John 11:32---) Jesus wept there.  But He raised him from the dead.

I suppose many who perhaps in say that they believe in God and in Christ have an idea that this is just too much . Jesus raises us. 

 But in the living we see God and those who have gone away into God's presence are still alive in our lives and hearts.

Our Daily Bread, April 17, 1995

A little over a month before he died, the famous atheist Jean-Paul Sartre declared that he so strongly resisted feelings of despair that he would say to himself, "I know I shall die in hope." Then in profound sadness, he would add, "But hope needs a foundation."

In this season of preparing hope and trust we remember our faith that makes us too saints.  The old hymn says it "

1. I sing a song of the saints of God,

patient and brave and true,

who toiled and fought and lived and died

for the Lord they loved and knew.

And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,

and one was a shepherdess on the green;

they were all of them saints of God, and I mean,

God helping, to be one too.

2. They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,

and his love made them strong;

and they followed the right for Jesus' sake

the whole of their good lives long.

And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,

and one was slain by a fierce wild beast;

and there's not any reason, no, not the least,

why I shouldn't be one too.

3. They lived not only in ages past;

there are hundreds of thousands still.

The world is bright with the joyous saints

who love to do Jesus' will.

You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store,

in church, by the sea, in the house next door;

they are saints of God, whether rich or poor,

and I mean to be one too."