As November commences, we in America begin to anticipate the coming of Thanksgiving Day, a day when we not only remember God’s providence to the Pilgrims who came to our shores in search of religious freedom, but also a day when we celebrate with friends and feasting the good things that God has done for us during the past year.
And we have many things to be thankful for. Our Heavenly Father has preserved our lives. He’s given us our daily bread which is more than food and drink, but, as Luther describes, includes “clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers,” etc. God has listened to and answered our prayers. He has kept us in the one true faith and provided for our every spiritual need through the ministry of Word and Sacrament. Yet these are not all that we are thankful for at this time of the church year.
The early Christian church had begun setting aside feast days to commemorate the martyrdom of its saints. However, as the number of martyrs increased, the need to consolidate these feasts into one date became apparent. As early as 373 A.D. there is mention of a single day being set aside for this purpose. In our church calendar, November 1 is commonly set aside as “All Saints Day,” or “The Feast of All Saints.”
In Luther’s day the church had begun to venerate the saints. That is to say they had begun to look to and pray to the saints for miracles and for mediation between themselves and a holy God, who they saw as being angry with sinners. The saints, the church taught, stood in the presence of God on the merit of their own good works. Because they are in His presence, they “have his ear,” so to speak. Therefore, the various saints might mediate between the sinner and God, might request mercy or a miracle from God, or might perhaps perform the miracle themselves. This understanding is contrary to God’s Word which says, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5). Hebrews 9 says, “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come…. he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood….Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant….everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” God used Martin Luther and other reformers to restore to the church a proper view of the saints, whose faithful confession claimed Christ as their only mediator before God, by Christ’s own precious blood which He shed on the cross and brought with Him into the heavenly Holy of Holies as payment for the sin of all men. For Christ our Savior, and for the faithful witness of the saints, we are truly thankful.
But there is one more thing that I am especially thankful for at this time of the year. I am thankful for you, God’s present- day saints. You see, the word in the Greek that is translated as “saints” is ἁγίους (hagious), which means “holy ones.” Each of you, my fellow redeemed, are saints because you are “ἁγίους,” you are “holy ones,” by the merit and righteousness of Jesus alone. And this righteousness, this holiness has been made yours in your baptism. And one day, you and I and all who put their faith in Jesus will stand in the very presence of God, because we have been made pure and clean, our robes once filthy and crimson because of our sin, now washed white like new-fallen snow by the blood of the Lamb.
I am thankful for our God’s providence. I am thankful for the saints who have gone before us. I am thankful for God’s servant Martin Luther and the Reformation that God brought about in the church. And I am thankful for you, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, with whom I will stand in heaven, to sing the praises of our glorious God forever.
In Christ,
Pastor