Sermon text: Revelation 7:9–17
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Today is All Saints’ Sunday. It is the day when the church remembers all the saints — all those who have died in the faith and are now with the Lord. It is a day of both grief and joy: grief, because we miss those who have gone before us; joy, because we know where they are, and we know that we will see them again.
Our text this morning is Revelation chapter 7, verses 9 through 17. John writes: “After this 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!’”
Who are these? “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
Signed, sealed, delivered. That is the theme of this morning’s sermon.
Signed: you have been signed with the sign of the cross in Holy Baptism. You belong to Christ. He has put His name on you.
Sealed: you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit. “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.”
Delivered: you will be delivered — from sin, death, and the devil — on the Last Day, when Christ comes again. “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.”
This is the hope of All Saints’ Day. Those who have died in the faith are signed, sealed, and delivered. They are with the Lord. They hunger no more. They thirst no more. God has wiped away every tear from their eyes.
And so will you. For you, too, have been signed in baptism. You, too, have been sealed with the Spirit. And you, too, will be delivered on the Last Day.
So we grieve — but not as those who have no hope. For we know that those who have died in Christ are with Him, and that we will see them again. “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”
Signed, sealed, delivered. You are His. And He will never let you go.
May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.