I’ll begin today with a description from an Anglican resource called “For all the Saints”, a book that lists and describes the Saints Days recognized by the Anglican Church.
All Saints Day “...had its origins in the fourth century, when churches in the East began to celebrate “the feast of the martyrs of the whole world” on the Sunday after Pentecost. Several Western churches adopted this festival and kept it on various dates in April or May, but in the early Middle Ages the church of Rome assigned it the much later date of November first and broadened the feast to include all the saints. Western Christendom has followed this custom ever since. Saints are Christians who in various ways, often against great odds, showed an extraordinary love for Christ. The Holy Spirit acted in their lives so that they chose to bring aid to the needy, justice to the oppressed, hope to the sorrowful, and the divine word of forgiveness to sinners. For the sake of Christ they were servants to the people of their day; and the service they rendered in the past makes them examples to the rest of the people of God throughout history.”[1]
All Saints Day is considered a Principle Feast Day, meaning that it is to be celebrated by the church. However it is also well accepted that people no longer attend church on a daily basis, like they well may have in the Middle Ages, so some Principle Feast Days have become ‘moveable’ often to the closest Sunday.
Individual Saint’s Days can be celebrated throughout the church year, and if you purchase a church calendar you will find the Saints Days that we recognize listed on it. The day attributed to the Saint is the date of their death, the day when they return to the Lord. The one exception to this is John the Baptist’s Saint Day, it is celebrated on the day attributed to his birth, as there is scripture that gives us information on his birth day—in relation of course to the birth of the Christ Child.
So today we celebrate all the saints of the church. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this celebration was moved to the day after Halloween—a word that comes from a conjunction of ‘All Hallows Eve’, the day the church reclaimed from ancient pagan festivals that celebrated the dead.
Anglican have, what I would say is a more ‘inclusive’ view of the saints and I daresay, a bit closer to the way we see the word used in the bible.
Some more searching revealed that the word saint is used 65 times in the New Revised Standard Version of the bible; but interestingly, just once in the Old Testament and that’s in Psalm 31, verse 23: “Love the Lord, all you his saints.” If you do read the books in the Apocrypha, you will hear it 4 times. The Apocrypha are the seven books that were not considered be the inspired words of God, by those who were deciding which books would make up the official Protestant Bible. However they were considered books of spiritual and moral value none the less, so were categorized differently and separately. Our first reading today is from the Book of Wisdom, one of the Apocryphal books. There is only one use of the word saint in the four gospels, in Matthew 27:52—at the moment of Jesus’ death on the cross, the earth shook and “The tombs also were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.” The rest are scattered throughout the other books of the New Testament. Revelation gets the prize for the most times in a single book with 15 references. St. Paul however, is the author with the most references to the saints of the church, 23 times just in the letters that scholars are sure that he wrote. I do think it’s reasonable to say that Paul has moulded our Anglican understanding of who the saints of the church truly are.
In his opening greeting of his first letter to the people of the Corinthian church, Paul says: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“To those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints”. To be sanctified-- that means those who are called to be holy, they are the saints. And who may those people be? Since the time before Christ, since the time of the Exodus, those who believed in the one Holy Almighty Creator God, were called to be a nation apart, God called them to be a holy people. These were the people of Israel. Exodus 19:6: ‘you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation’, the Lord said to Moses. From this ancient calling is the formation of our faith too, our beliefs began here. From this ancient line of people came Jesus, son of God, born to a woman -- Mary, from the line of the great King David. Jesus, the Christ, God embodied, God as man, came to earth to remind people, to show God’s people of their calling as God’s holy people.
So, who are the saints of the church? We are: the people of Gods’ church, we are Christ’s people. We have been sanctified—we have been called to be holy, through our baptisms into the body of Christ’s Church, as members of Jesus’ Church and were baptised in that faith “together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” When we are baptized, we are not baptized into the Anglican, or the United or the Presbyterian—or any specific denomination’s church—we are baptized into Christ’s universal and holy Church.
It is good to remind ourselves each year of this call to be a holy people, we who are members of Christ’s holy Church. So, on November 1st—or maybe on the Sunday after it, we remember and celebrate yes, the ‘official saints’—the ones named on our calendar, but it is also a reminder of our call to be God’s Holy People. We remember the saints of this church who have gone before us; they, like we, are witnesses to a life of faith. We remember the legacy they have left us -- and realize that we are a part of the legacy for the saints yet to come. When the time comes, we will join those gone before us, those who are at now peace with the Lord. This reassurance that we return to God is an ancient belief, going back to the time before Jesus, as our reading from Wisdom told us.
“The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God (but) in the eyes of the unwise, they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster.” (Wisdom3.2) However, those who are wise know “they are at peace”. (Wisdom 3.3) The author, a Greek Jew writing in the century before Jesus’ birth, is pretty clear that he feels that those without faith are the unwise or foolish ones. People who are unwise, who lack faith are not able to appreciate or anticipate what death brings; they see only finality and despair. They miss the peace, the hope and love of a life lived in the hope joy and love of God. The imagery of souls shining brightly like sparks through the stubble of grain field is a beautiful one, and I think of this verse when I look at the lights of the remembrance candles we lit.
God’s grace and mercy are upon God’s holy ones, God’s chosen ones, in life and we know this continues even after death. Because for Christians, we have the example of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection upon which to pattern our lives. We know death is not the final answer, for death brings a new—and different life, for All the Saints of God’s Church. Amen
[1] Stephen Reynolds. For All the Saints (ABC Publishing, Toronto,ON: 2007) 328