Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Anyone can take a picture but it
takes a photographer to make a picture. That’s what Mrs. Prozgoda taught us in
photojournalism. With his photography, Allen Bruce Zee makes the photo come
alive as if you were there, in the picture. On his website, he has a picture of
a 13th century French church that is so clear and defined it’s as if
he has the viewer – you and me – in the chancel, backs to the altar, facing
into the nave of an empty nave. You can see the age of the church, you can
practically smell the centuries of beeswax candles, you can hear the echoes of generations
of kyries, sung and spoken, still echoing across the centuries. The sanctuary is rather narrow – 20, maybe 25
feet. The floor is grey flagstone. The heavy brick walls stand tall, rising to
an arched roof that representing the interior of the keel of a ship. The walls’
cream-to-beige color is stained varying shades of grey from age. The high,
arched windows cascade light diagonally across the narrow, long sanctuary,
illuminating the six or seven rows of chairs to each side of the central aisle
in the front of the chapel. The rear of the chancel is empty, plenty of space
for an overflow of unexpected worshippers who gather. The piece is
appropriately titled “Waiting for the Believers.” Although the church is void
of people, it is waiting in anticipation. The exterior narthex door stands wide
open with a welcome mat of sunshine on threshold, while the baptismal font stands
ready to the left of the chancel doors to remind worshippers of the Baptismal
covenant that made them les enfants de Dieu.
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| "Waiting for Believers" Used with written permission of Allen Bruce Zee |
I’ve spent time this week, going back to that photo over and over. I think what draws me to it is that it reflects what is often my perspective. Sometimes, it happens on a Wednesday morning before kids and parents come for chapel; other times, random times in the week I’ll pass through to get something, or simply wanting the quiet solitude for a moment of prayer or contemplative thought, and I find myself standing in the chancel, waiting for the people of God to fill His holy but empty house, to invoke His name, and receive the blessings He offers in Water and Word, particularly the forgiveness of sins, and the pledge of an eternal union with Him that continues through time and through death into eternity. The photo gives a visually expanding perspective of what the church is. It’s a church building eagerly anticipating welcoming the church in community, itself a part of the Christian church on earth, mirroring other sanctuaries, chancels, and naves across town and across the globe that are waiting to be filled with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Waiting for believers, indeed.
That picture seems apropos for
celebrating All Saints Day, as we give thanks to God for all of His people,
made holy through the death and resurrection of Christ, who continue to live –
and sometimes struggle – this side of heaven under the cross. We, the Church, God’s People, are saints –
saint means holy, remember – we are made saints through the death and
resurrection of Jesus. His atonement, His blood-payment for our sins, had
redeemed us from sin, death and the devil. No longer blind, dead, enemies of
God, through Christ we are welcomed into son-ship and daughter-ship with the
Father next to our Savior and Brother Jesus. Even when we are not here, in the
nave of the church, we are still the Church, the body of Christ on earth,
believers, waiting for the blessed return of Jesus.
It’s been said that a picture is
worth ten thousand words. But, I wondered if the picture didn’t have another
story to tell, a story that goes beyond what the artist intended.
As I looked at the picture, I
wondered if the empty chairs speak to those who have worshipped across the
generations, from the 13th century to today, and if the walls,
weathered, stained and worn, aren’t also stained from the hands of the faithful
who have reached out to steady themselves, or perhaps to be encouraged by
remembering those who have worshipped before. Remember, since the piece is
titled “Waiting for the Believers,” I wonder if it might be a picture of those
who sat in those seats across the previous generations and who have gone on
before us, who have died in the faith, and who are now experiencing the
beginning of the eternal bliss of heaven at the foot of Jesus, and that they
are waiting for us, the believers, to join them from this side of eternity. I
wrote the artist, in fact, and asked if it might not also represent the fact
that the saints in heaven are waiting for us, the believers on earth, to join
their presence. In other words, my thought is that it’s not as much about me
waiting for you to enter this holy house as it we are remembering those no
longer in our presence, whose seat – this side of heaven – is empty, while
looking forward to the day we will join them on another shore and in a greater
light with a multitude that no one can number.
I admit, I got the idea for an
alternate perspective as I considered the reading from Revelation this week.
The first verses – which, sadly, aren’t on the back of your bulletin, verses
2-8 – it’s as if John is looking at the scene from one side of the lens. From
that view, we see the symbolic 144,000 – not a literalistic reservations-only
number. It’s twelve times twelve (144) times ten times ten times ten (ten, three times) – all symbolic
numbers of fullness and completion. The 144,000 represents all of us, this side
of heaven, who make up the church militant, washed clean in Holy Baptism and
protected by God while we remain in the world, as Jesus Himself prayed. That’s
the church on earth, where we are now. That’s who we sang about in verse three:
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, Alleluia! Alleluia!
(LSB 677 v.3)
But then John steps to the other
side of the lens and he gets a totally different view. That’s his view of the
church in heaven, where we are promised to have a place when Jesus returns,
with all of the saints who have died in the faith and await the resurrection of
the body and the life of the world to come.
On All Saints Day, we particularly
give thanks to God for the saints who have gone before us, who lived and died
in the faith. Don’t think of this as if saints are only those of extra ordinary
faith and works, like St. Luke, St. Mary Magdeline, or our congregational
namesake, St. Paul. Although, yes, we do often refer to these extra-ordinary
role models of faith as “saint,” make no mistake: the title of saint is for all
the faithful, not just a select few. Today, we give thanks not only for St.
Francis of Asissi but also for St. Walt of Walburg and St. Janet of Georgetown.
In Christ, the unnamed soul buried in the county pauper’s cemetery is as much a
saint as Stephen who was martyred in the book of Acts. From Adam onward, across
epochs and generations, this is the countless number, the great multitude that
St. John saw, crossing languages, nationalities, cultures, and races. All are
washed white in the blood of the lamb, joining with the eternal song,
“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
I don’t think it’s a small thing
that John, seeing the church in resurrection, digs back into the Old Testament
to explain what he is seeing. Using Isaiah, John says of the church triumphant:
“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.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the
sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. 17 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.”
That’s an important promise to
us, this side of the resurrection, that as we look forward, we lean backwards
into the ancient promises of God. Those promises are powerful, because for many
of us, All Saints Day brings tears to the eyes. Yes, we rejoice that our loved
ones are beginning the eternal joy of the presence of Jesus, and yes, we
believe Jesus’ promise that we will also have our resurrection reunion with
them when He returns. We trust this for the sake of Christ’s own resurrection
as the first-fruits of the harvest. If there is a first-fruit, there is more to
come.
But until then, we – with St.
John – stand in this liminal space between the ascended Jesus and the returning
Jesus, waiting with the church on earth to be translated to the church
triumphant. Like the photograph, we are waiting for believers, waiting with
believers, waiting to be with the believers who are waiting for us to join them
into eternity.
In just a few moments, we get a
foretaste of that great day with, with angels, archangels, and all the saintly
company of heaven, we join with Christ who is both host and feast. You’ve
perhaps heard me describe how in old, Scandinavian Lutheran churches, their
communion rail was always a half-circle that touched the rear wall on either
side of the altar. The idea was that as you communed, you remembered the saints
who have gone before and who are worshipping at the heavenly altar. So, to extend
the metaphor to fit our sanctuary, consider that our communion rail extends through
the walls, all of the way to the east and all the way to the west. On the other
side of this wall we are joined with the saints of heaven. We see them, along
with our Lord Jesus, with eyes of faith, today, hot with tears. But that day
will come when, with dry eyes, we will see and celebrate in resurrected
wholeness with our Lord Jesus.
Oh,
that day when freed from sinning, I shall see Thy lovely face!
Clothed then in the blood-washed linen, How I’ll sing Thy wondrous grace!
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry, Take all sin and death away!
With your angels come and raise us, Bring the realms of endless day.
(LSB 686 v. 4, revised)
And the Spirit and the Bride say,
“Come quickly, Lord Jesus, come.”
Amen.
[1] Waiting
for the Believers St. Amand de Coly, France. I am grateful to Mr. Zee allowing me to link to and use his photograph for this sermon posting.
