Reigning with Christ

All Saints’ Day – 2024                                                                 LSB #677, v.1-3 & 7-8; 506, 678
Text – Revelation 20:4c
 
They came to life & reigned with Christ for a thousand years.  
 
Reigning with Christ
 
 
This sermon will focus on the third sentence of Revelation 20:4, but the two sentences leading up to it are a bit complicated to understand.   That’s not unusual for the book of Revelation.   Add to that  the fact that All Saints’ Day is not an easy topic upon which to write a Christ-centered sermon,  & the preacher faces a challenge. 
Lutherans do not worship the saints.   Neither do we pray to them or even through them.  You & I have direct access to the heavenly Father because of what Jesus Christ has done & continues doing even today.  Christ alone is the source of our salvation  & all the saints in heaven wholeheartedly agree.  They want our attention to be focused on Jesus as our Lord & Savior. 
Focusing too heavily on the saints  can border on idolatry.  Much has been done along those lines in the Roman Catholic & the Orthodox Churches.  We need to be careful, when celebrating All Saints’ Day, to keep Jesus in the center  of our thoughts, words & deeds. 
That leads to the question, “Is there value  in celebrating All Saints’ Day?”   Is Jesus  not enough  to give us hope,  while calming our fears & anxieties  in the brokenness of this sinful world?   The obvious answer  is that Jesus certainly is enough,  & yet  the heavenly Father chooses to bless us in many additional ways. 
According to the Bible, Jesus is the Word.  Nevertheless,  God also chooses to bless us through Baptism & Holy Communion.  Through them,  people are incorporated into,  & blessed by,  the body of Christ.   On a more physical level, God “…makes His sun rise on the evil & on the good, & sends rain on the just & on the unjust.”  (Matthew 5:45b ESV) 
Those are just a few ways that Almighty God works to bless us  even though knowing
Jesus is enough.   The heavenly Father loves to bestow physical & spiritual gifts upon His creation.   Finally,  it should be obvious that any of the saints in heaven,  who were instrumental in passing on the faith to others,  were a tremendous blessing from our Creator.   
One of the things Jan & I regularly include in our evening prayers is to thank God for our parents, grandparents, pastors & teachers who passed on to us  faith in Jesus Christ as Lord  & as Savior.  That is at least part of  the essence of celebrating All Saints’ Day.   Every one of us here would not be in this room today  if it were not for others  who are already in heaven. 
Another aspect is the original focus that has since morphed into what we today  call All Saints’ Day.  It originated as a way to remember the sacrifices of the martyrs.  In the early years of the Christian Church, the Roman Empire persecuted Christians.  Over 300 years, it’s estimated that about 400,000 people had their lives ended because of their love for Jesus. 
We’d do well to remember that  when we find ourselves thinking how terrible it is  to not have electricity  or a fully charged smart phone in hand.   It’s not easy to relate All Saints’ Day to people who are totally disconnected from the harsh realities of life in a sinful world.  As a nation, our people have been tremendously blessed by the sacrifices of the saints who’ve gone before us. 
However, those blessings are a mixed bag.  They have made for comfortable lives, but sin has twisted this world such that comfortable living  brings about weak faith in Jesus.  When that faith is not challenged  it does not grow strong.  Many today  have drifted away from the Church  because their lives have been too easy,  & they don’t even realize it. 
The saints in heaven know better,  & the only way for us to know as they do  is to join them.  You know what that means,  which brings us to the text from Revelation 20.   Verse 4 begins, “Then I saw thrones,  & seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed.”   You may ask: “Who are those people seated on the thrones?”  You may think it’s an elite group of people  who have been successful leaders in the Church.  Maybe you imagine the responsibility of that role of judge  as something far beyond your ability.   The truth is  John is probably referring  to you, at least  if you are a follower of Jesus.  Daniel 7:27 tells us:
“And the kingdom & the dominion & the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven  shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High;…”  Do you consider yourself a child of God?   Then God has already placed you upon a throne & committed to you the authority to judge. 
Supporting that is Romans 5:17, “For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man,  much more will those who receive the abundance of grace & the free gift of righteousness  reign in life  through the one man  Jesus Christ.”   In other words, as Jesus is ruling the world today, & you were baptized into Christ,  so you also reign in this life. 
Now, that could easily go to your head.  Or, in false humility, you could say, “There’s no way on earth  I’m qualified to do that.”  You’d be wrong on either count  because through Christ you are qualified,  & yet  it is still  all about Jesus.  He is always enough to give us hope in this sinful world,  but He chooses to bless us with real things to do,  with real faith to pass on. 
Once in a while  you have to make really major decisions.  You also make thousands of tiny decisions every day,  & in each one of them  you make choices between good & evil.   You judge between right & wrong.  In John 20:21-23, Jesus authorizes the church to open & shut heaven by forgiving the sins of the penitent & retaining the sins of the impenitent. 
Those pronouncements of forgiveness or condemnation are judgments proclaimed in the stead of Christ  & on behalf of God.  In Baptism you have already died & risen with Christ.  In that sense you’ve already begun your new life & reign with Christ.   Your reign here on earth involves the constant struggle against sin, & Revelation 20:4 tells you  that you are seated on a throne with authority to judge.  You can only do that  as you remain in the Vine – Christ Jesus.  Does that put a different spin on All Saints’ Day for you?    Our Lord & Savior has placed responsibility upon us  that has eternal implications.  If we had a better grasp of that  we might see a much greater need in our lives  for Jesus as Lord & Savior. 
The 2nd sentence of Revelation 20:4 says, “Also  I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus & for the word of God, & those who had not worshiped the beast or its image & had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands.”   You’re probably thinking, the last time I looked, my head was still attached.  That can’t be  about me. 
In the context of the entire Bible, these words seem to speak of any Christian who witnesses to the truth of Jesus & then suffers various forms of persecution.  It may be as simple as family & friends thinking, “You’re off your rocker,”  & refusing to believe what you say.   All Christian witnesses back up & confirm their testimony with their lives &, if necessary, by death. 
Finally, the sermon text, “They came to life & reigned with Christ for a thousand years.”  This is key to understanding that all of God’s children are currently reigning with Christ.   In Lutheran understanding of theology, the thousand years is not a literal reference to time, but a figurative one.   It refers to all the years between Christ’s birth & the Last Day of time. 
“They came to life” is not a reference to the physical resurrection from the dead.  That’s what confuses people.  It actually refers to what we call the 1st resurrection, which occurs when the Holy Spirit creates faith & raises someone from the spiritual death that all of us are conceived in.  As Ephesians tells believers:
“And you were dead in the trespasses & sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world…”  (2:1-2 ESV)  When the Holy Spirit brought you to faith in Jesus,  He raised you from the dead – you came to life – & now reign with Christ during the time between His birth  & His return to judge the world.  We believe these are the whole people of God, both those still on earth  & those already in heaven.  The church still struggling against sin on earth & the church triumphant in heaven are ruling on thrones along with Christ.  However, the emphasis in the text from Revelation is on those still on earth  struggling against the forces of evil. 
St. John wrote Revelation to encourage the seven churches who were passing through, or knew they’d soon be passing through, severe & fierce temptation.  When we sing the hymn, With All the Saints, we tend to think of those who are already in heaven, but now you can sing it with yourself in mind.  Revelation was written to encourage the living,  not the dead. 
We celebrate All Saints’ Day, not to encourage the dead,  but to encourage the living.  It is for our benefit that we remember those who have gone before us,  who have left a legacy of faith for us.   It’s meant to encourage believers here & now to press on, looking forward to the glorious day to come. 
Have you walked in the cool shade of a quiet cemetery to visit the graves of relatives?  That experience can put us into our place in God’s story.  We are inheritors of what our relatives passed on to us, & we are temporary caretakers of today’s world.  Their tombstones testify loudly to the temporariness of their world & of ours. 
With All Saints’ Day, figuratively, we walk among the saints on earth & in heaven.  Doing so is meant to help us sense our place in history & in eternity.    The day was popular throughout Europe in the Middle Ages when congregations walked solemnly through their churchyard cemeteries among the tombstones of their ancestors. 
Are you right now reigning with Christ?   The book of Revelation says that you are whether you know it or not.   Knowing that can give you a new & hopeful perspective on the struggles you face,  no matter what they may be.  Knowing that does not minimize your struggles in any way,  but it does give purpose to them.  The heavenly Father does not allow suffering into our lives  just to show us He’s the boss.  There is real & eternal purpose & meaning to them,  just as there was real & eternal purpose to Jesus’ suffering & death on the cross.  Our weaknesses & sins have been paid for.  We now live in the freedom & joy of that great news.  Amen.
 
 
 
Oh, may Thy soldiers, faithful, true & bold,  fight as the saints who nobly fought of old  & win  with them  the victor’s crown of gold!  Alleluia!   Alleluia!  Amen.  LSB 677:3.