The advent of our King Our prayers must now employ, And we must hymns of welcome sing In strains of holy joy.
“Advent” means “to come toward.” When we use the word Advent, we speak about Jesus’ First coming toward earth and His Second Coming on the Last Day. In this verse and during this season, we recall when Jesus first came to earth as a baby in Bethlehem.
The everlasting Son Incarnate deigns to be, Himself a servant’s form puts on To set His servants free.
Jesus is the Son of God. This verse reminds us that Jesus is “everlasting,” both before the creation of the world and after He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. The Son became flesh as a servant, the opposite of King, to set His servants, all of us, free from sin, death, and the devil.
O Zion’s daughter, rise To meet your lowly King, Nor let your faithless heart despise The peace He comes to bring.
“Zion’s daughter” is an Old Testament phrase for the Church. And here there are two meanings for the word “rise.” The obvious meaning is to stand up while we sing for “the King is coming.” But here also, the hymn means for us to consider the resurrection, that the Church shall rise from the graves on the Last Day and see the King, our Lord Most High.
As judge, on clouds of light, He soon will come again And His true members all unite With Him in heaven to reign.
Suddenly the hymn shifts from the First Coming to the Second Coming of our Lord. Now the Lord Jesus the Judge of the living and the dead comes on the clouds as the Scriptures testify. This verse puts the hymn in our own context, for we await the Last Day with patience and joy in the midst of suffering.
Before the dawning day Let sin’s dark deeds be gone, The sinful self be put away, The new self now put on.
What can we do while we wait for the Last Day? We put the new self on. While we worship we ask for God’s forgiveness of our sins, and He forgives them. This He has promised to us. Then we hear the Word of God, which works faith in us. Finally, we receive the Sacrament, the foretaste of the feast to come.
All glory to the Son, Who comes to set us free, With Father, Spirit, ever one Through all eternity.
This final verse is a doxology. “Dox” means “glory.” These final verses of some hymns give glory to God. In this particular hymn, the doxology serves as a profound conclusion, that our lives in heaven on the Last Day will be endless refrains of giving glory to God forever and ever.
Rev. James Peterson First Lutheran Church Phillipsburg, Kansas
In Jewish custom, when someone dies, they are washed and laid out for mourning only a short time. They had to be buried as soon as possible, no longer than three days after death. Peter came to the room while they were grieving Tabitha.
Peter had been with Jesus all three times he raised people from the dead. Just as Jesus and the prophet Elijah did, he took the mourners out of the room and then prayed. This is very different than the healers of that day — and now — who make the event into a big show and who take all the credit. Very simply, he told her to get up, and she did. Peter then brought the woman to her friends, who spread the word throughout Joppa.
As with the miracles of Jesus, there are two messages for us in this story. One is that God cares about His people and grieves with them. Tabitha would once again die – and will rise again on the last day. Here God turned grief into joy for those He loves.
The more important message, however, is that the Gospel which Peter preached is true and from God. It creates faith in the hearts of those who become believers. The focus is on what God is doing and not what we do.
This story also calls are attention to a faithful servant of God — Tabitha. She has been an example for the church throughout the ages of those who give their lives to care for others. This we have in common with her. Our calling is to care for others and honor those who care.
As a Roman citizen, Paul had the right to be tried by the emperor himself. Since the High Priests had decided to kill him, Paul exercised that right. Traveling by ship was still the quickest way to get to Rome, although it was risky, especially in the fall, when Paul’s ship set sail. Having arrived at a small port in Crete, the group had to decide if they would want to try for a larger port to their west. Paul had a vision of danger, and warned the party without success.
When a ship in this circumstance runs too close to shore, sailors would throw all unnecessary cargo overboard. St. Paul’s crew did this and put down the anchors as well. Since this left the boat at the mercy of the winds, sailors would always look for other options. Normally it is not wise to attempt to land in an unfamiliar place without aid. St. Paul’s crew had no better option and ran the ship into a sandbar attempting it.
Throughout this ordeal, God kept Paul and his companions safe as He promised He would. Paul’s calm in peril impressed all the pagans who traveled with him. These events are remembered to this day in Malta, where they were stranded over the winter.
Rev. Robert E. Smith Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, Indiana
Sermon on Revelation 7:13-17 All Saint’s Sunday October 30, 2022 Saint Paul Lutheran Church And Trinity Lutheran Church McGregor and Guttenberg, Iowa
Text: “Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “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. “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. 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.”
Prayer: For all the saints who from their labors rest, Who Thee by faith before the world confessed, Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. Amen.
Christ is Risen!
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who by his death has destroy death and by his rising again opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
Introduction: On this All Saints 2022, a flood of thoughts and emotions occupy my thoughts. Three years ago on Reformation Day, Evangeline Charissa Keller was baptized into the name of the Triune God by her father in the NICU in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Her entrance into the world was dramatic and the shadow in the back of my thoughts as we drove there was the remote possibility that she, her mother — my daughter Hanne — and her father could be at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb by that day. The Lord had mercy and blessed the work of doctors, nurses and many others to perform near perfect procedures. They all came through well and thrived as I preached for my son-in-law that year’s All Saints divine service. It was as if the Holy Spirit whispered “not yet, not yet.” In the years since, all is very well with them and a very bright three-year-old joined her six-year-old sister in delighting and challenging her mother and father.
Our text this morning opens the curtain of heaven for us to see the throne of God. There gathered before the Father and the Lamb of God are the children of God from every time – Adam and Noah, Joseph and Moses, David and Elijah, and all those trusting in the coming Messiah. There are also the Apostles and Evangelists, Christians from every time and place, language and nation, and people much more familiar to me.
I remember my own grandparents and grandparents-in-law, who lived and prospered through incredibly hard times, kept the faith in their own … unique … ways, who were often living examples of saints and sinners at the same time. I remember my grandmother Smith reading from the big, KJV family Bible to me as a child on her lap. I remember my grandmother Schneider and her aunt who gave me my first Greek New Testament as a confirmation gift. There are my parents and parents-in-law, troubled in troubled times, yet who still kept their faith. Also present is my father, that bruised reed the Lord did not break. And now in 2022, my beloved wife, Kris, has joined them. She loved me, her children and grandchildren through constant pain all of her life, produced endless beautiful and practical crafts that blessed many. Her straightforward, rock-hard faith was an inspiration to me and to many. All are at rest with their Savior, along with two grandchildren whom the Good Shepherd folded in his arms while still in the womb. Many others are there, too. My Fathers and brothers in the faith that taught me and many others and laid the same stole of ministry on me as I have now laid on my son-in-law and spiritual sons. I am thankful for them and for their confessions, praying to be as faithful to the Lord as they were.
So, how did they get there before the throne? Born sinners they struggled with the Old Adam and Old Eve until the day they died. Yet when they were baptized, Jesus united them with his death. When he rose from the dead, he opened the way for them – and us – to be with him forever. He, the Lamb of God took away the sins of the world – their sin, our sin. At their deaths, his angels came, gave them the white robes of his righteousness and the palms of victory they wave before the throne.
In life, he was their Rock, their Fortress, and their Might; he was their Captain in the well-fought fight. Now they rest from their labors and God has dried every tear from their eyes. Yet to me, and to you, the Holy Spirit still seems to whisper, “Not yet, Not yet!” We feebly struggle, they in glory shine!
Eight years ago, I struggled with a massive infection in my heel. Several times I told my pastor that I still believed what I taught and confessed these thirty-seven years as I went to surgery. Later I was told that I was on the threshold of attending the Marriage Feast. It was as if the Holy Spirit had said, “not yet, not yet.” In the years since, I have continued to preach, to teach, cared for my home congregation when our pastor was on the threshold himself, presided at the weddings of two of my children, seen all my grandchildren save one baptized with the same baptismal shell with which their parents and others were baptized, began to pass the baton on to four of my spiritual sons, welcomed a brand new pastor to our home congregation, and, with him, mentor vicars. God has blessed me more than I deserve.
And now I reflect that I was blessed to celebrate All Saints Day with my wife thirty-four times, thankful for each day we were together, praying to thank the Lord for those safely home. Now I pray after receiving the Lord’s Supper to thank God for my late wife, an ever-growing list of grandchildren, my children and their spouses. I will rejoice that this year I can still hold their hands, speak with them through the ether and see them all once in a while. Soon, all too soon, the angels will come for me or one of them, to join those at the Feast as the Holy Spirit no longer says, “not yet” but the Lord Jesus says to one of us, “welcome to the joy of your Father.”
And yet there breaks a more glorious day. The saints triumphant will rise in bright array; The King of glory passes on His way. Sin and death will die. The world renewed, restored and be transformed, fit for eternity. God will pitch his tent with us and live with us forever. And he will dry every tear from our eyes.
Christ is Risen! Amen, come Lord Jesus, come!
Prayer:
Oh, may Thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold, Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old And win with them the victor’s crown of gold! Amen.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, set watch over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting.
Rev. Robert E. Smith Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, Indiana
