The Ones Who Came Through

The church has a habit of turning saints into statues. Pale, serene, eyes lifted, never once late to anything. Then All Saints arrives and the reading from Revelation knocks the statues over.

John looks up and sees a crowd nobody can count. They come from every nation, every tribe, every people and language, and they’re standing in front of the throne in white robes, waving palm branches like it’s a parade. An elder asks John who they are and where they came from. John, to his everlasting credit, says, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” There’s something refreshing about somebody in Scripture admitting he doesn’t have the answer.

The elder doesn’t describe a crowd of people who had it together. These are the ones who have come out of the great ordeal. They went through it. Being faithful hadn’t spared them.

And those white robes? They have washed them in the blood of the Lamb. It’s a strange image, blood making something white, but it puts Christ at the center of the story. Their hope rests in the one who suffered with them and gave himself for them. The saints belong to him.

I’ve spent a fair amount of my ministry at bedsides, and I can tell you the saints I’ve met near the end of their lives didn’t look like the saints in stained glass. They were stubborn and funny and frightened, and some of them were still holding a grudge against a cousin. They were also loved. Even when there was unfinished business, God’s love wasn’t waiting for them to settle it.

First John says it plainly: “we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” Now, in the middle of the mess, before the finishing touches. We are God’s children before we’ve figured out how to live as God’s children.

Then Matthew puts Jesus on a mountain. His disciples come to him, and he begins to teach. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek.

I know the Beatitudes often get heard as a spiritual to-do list with the reward at the bottom. But listen to what Jesus says to those who mourn. He doesn’t ask whether they’ve processed it well. He calls them blessed. That includes the person who cried in the car this morning for no reason they could name.

Of course, Jesus also blesses the peacemakers, and making peace usually means getting involved in something we’d rather avoid. Hungering for righteousness means we cannot get comfortable with a world that leaves our neighbors hungry.

I’m the priest of a bilingual, multiracial parish, so I’ll admit to a bias here. When John describes a crowd from every language and people, I don’t hear a faraway vision. I hear a slightly bigger version of a Sunday I know. We have too often behaved as though holiness belonged to one kind of person. John’s vision gives us a multitude, with their different peoples and languages still worth naming. Nobody has to become somebody else to belong to Christ.

All Saints is also the day we say the names of the people we miss. Grief doesn’t tidy up on a church calendar, and the readings don’t ask it to. What they promise is that God will wipe away every tear. God comes close enough to touch the face of someone who is crying.

So this Sunday, whoever you’re carrying, whether it’s a parent, a friend, a child, or a version of your own life you didn’t get to keep, bring that grief with you.

We’re still on our way through. This Sunday we’ll say their names, and some of us will cry. We’ll come to the table together. Christ will meet us there.