All Saints Sunday - November 2, 2008

Salvation Belongs to Our God!
Revelation 7:9-17
All Saints Day – November 2, 2008

I'll never forget the spring of my junior year in high school. It was the first time I ever saw Billy Joel in concert. My cousin got me tickets to see the show in Pittsburgh, & I rounded up some fellow fans, and off we went for one of the highlights of my young life!

If you've ever been to see one of your favorite musicians live & in person, you can imagine how I felt – the anticipation, the excitement, the joy of being in the presence of this person whose music I loved so much. The concert was wonderful – Billy performed for 3 hours straight, no opening act, no bad numbers. I remember being there in the darkened arena with thousands of screaming fans, all who loved him as much as I did. And I remember this amazing sense of unity among all of us, drawn together from who knows how many different places, joined into one as we lifted our voices in song, singing along with Billy Joel the songs he had written, singing back to him the words that we all knew by heart. It was - for me - a little glimpse of heaven.

Because that night is what the 1st lesson, the passage from Revelation, reminds me of. I don't know how most of you imagine what worship will be like in heaven, if you ever give it any thought at all, although I doubt most of us ever think it'll be anything like a rock concert. More likely, we think of subdued, solemn angels, gently plucking their harp strings, drifting from cloud to cloud. Peaceful, but boring. But from what the prophet John says here, I'm betting it'll be so much more than that!

He says that there will be a huge crowd there, bigger than any stadium or arena could ever hold, and in that crowd will be people who come from all over! They will be there from every nation on earth, and from every tribe and people, and speaking every language that there ever was or ever will be. And all of these people, different as they are, as separated as they might have been on earth – by socio-economic class or beliefs or sheer physical distance, will be united, drawn together by God & Christ, the Lamb, all singing together at the top of their lungs in love and praise for the One who has saved them! Just as I was at that concert, they will be lifted beyond themselves, lost in the joy & wonder of singing back to the one who wrote the song of their lives, the song of love, singing the words they know by heart (no need for hymnals in heaven!), amazed that they get to be there in person, forgetting all of the trials and tribulations that came before.

It is a beautiful, powerful picture John, a different John than the author of the gospel, paints here. It was an important message for the early church to hear, because they and John were living in dangerous times. It was a time of persecution and oppression, a time of insecurity and threats and random violence. It was a time when being a Christian marked you for potential attack by your neighbors, by your rulers, by the government. It was not a time that lent itself to feelings of joy. Fear & worry about their day-to-day existence, about their very survival, would have lurked at every corner, shadowing their hearts and minds even as they sought to follow Jesus. It is into this situation that John brings his message of this amazing worship before God's throne, where diverse people are united, crying out together, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” They are going through tough times now, but John's vision of the future brings them hope and courage – that their ordeals will not last forever. And when they have come out of the great ordeal, they will worship God, for God will shelter them & fears and tears, hunger and thirst, sin & death will all be a thing of the past. They will be delivered from all of the things that limited their lives on earth, called into wholeness of life, abundant life, in God's presence.

It can be hard sometimes for us in in 21st century America to make the connection between our experience and the events that happen in the Bible. We are not persecuted for our faith like our 1st century brothers and sisters were. But we can relate to their sense of fear and concern over what the future holds. As the election has gotten closer and closer, people on both sides of the political fence have been increasingly predicting doom & gloom if the opposing party wins. We worry about the economy and about wars and the threat of global warming & natural disasters. The future seems uncertain, insecure.

But into this situation, the Revelation of John come to us too! He paints a glorious picture of what is to come when God's kingdom comes in its fullness, when God's will will be done on earth, as it already is in heaven. In that day, God will be our shelter, and we will hunger and thirst no more. The Lamb who is also the Good Shepherd will lead us to the springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes! John's message comes to give us hope & courage to keep the faith, to trust in God despite our circumstances. John comes to remind us, not only of what God has done, but of what God is doing and what God promises to do!

But this vision he gives us of the departed saints worshiping God in glory is not just some future event. It's happening now, as we speak! Today, on All Saints Day, we remember and rejoice in the lives of all the saints, and we especially celebrate that the saints who have gone before us, the loved ones who are no longer with us, have joined the multitude that already surrounds God's throne! They are there with all of God's people, joining their hearts and their voices together to sing God's praise!

This marvelous picture of the present future keeps breaking in all around us who are still here on earth. Heaven breaks in, it peeks through, and I hope you feel it as you worship here this morning, that you feel united with each other, drawn out of yourself & beyond your worries and your fears, into something bigger than yourselves, into the love of the God who saves! For when God's people come together to worship and praise, we see the future now! It comes in different ways and different places for each of us. I felt it just a few weeks ago at the installation of Bishop Rimbo. It was like seeing this scene play out now, as people from many different nations and tribes and languages came together, singing and praising and praying together. We heard the Old Testament lesson read in its original Hebrew, and the prayers spoken in all the different languages represented there, and if we were looking up, in sign language too! And the music - organ & brass, classical quartets, African-American gospel, the steel drum band, traditional hymns and more recent additions to our common song! All of us giving praise to God in our unique ways, all of these things drawing us together as one people of God, because our focus was on God, not on ourselves.

And God's presence isn't felt only in the big high festive days of worship with hundreds of people. It breaks through in the everyday too! I have felt it in tiny groups of people gathered to sing our prayers through repetitive, contemplative song. I have felt it with groups of youth singing around the campfire - not just Kum Ba Yah, but the joyful stand up and jump and dance for Jesus kind of songs. And I have felt it here among us, as we have gathered for just a typical Sunday morning worship, when God's holy people – all of us – come together, and for one hour, give or take, we put aside our worries for the future, and stand together around God's throne, giving glory & honor & praise to the one who created us, and cares for us, and is bringing salvation into our lives every moment! Heaven breaks in when we focus our attention on God, instead of on each other and what may be. Salvation belongs to our God! Oh come, let us worship & praise! Amen!