All Saints Sunday – We Must Die to Live
1st Sun after Pent; All Saints, June 27, 2021 Matt:10:32,33;37,38; 19:27-30
Glory to Jesus Christ! Tomorrow starts the Apostles fast and lasts until the next day – Tuesday, the feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul, a one day fast this year. Look around at all the saints on the Icons around us. This is All Saints Sunday. We have been celebrating All Saints Sunday officialsince it was first instituted in 731 by Gregory 3rd; pope of Rome as a reaction to the Iconoclastic decree issued by Emperor Leo 3. What a comfort to be joined to our Church with such eternally established stability and continuity.
Through much suffering and struggle, the Church has passed the fullness of the Orthodox faith on to every succeeding generation, until today when it has been passed down to us to guard and keep intact and pass on to the next generation. This is our sacred duty and it is important that we understand the faith, so we can pass it on unaltered. When I was ordained I asked Bishop Irénée what advice he would give me. He immediately replied, “Don’t make stuff up.” As we celebrate All saints Sunday, let us pray that we would be faithful to preserve and pass along the fullness and undefiled faith that all the saints held and continue to hold in common.
Today we remember and ask for help from those saints gone before us, those who have successfully travelled the road leading to Christ and the kingdom of God and are calling out for us to join them There are millions of these saints – a great cloud of witnesses, as Paul says in his epistle today. At the dismissal at the end of our Vespers and Liturgy services, I read a fraction of the daily Orthodox list of saints we could commemorate each day, asking for their prayers so you get a small idea of just how much support we have available to us. Every century has their champions, wonderworkers and martyrs.
We often tend to look at the saints in awe, like we are spectators in the stands watching professional athletes who have trained and performed and are at the top of their game. The saints are greatly varied in their talents and giftings, but they all have one thing in common – they intensely focused on the object of their quest – being united with Christ – “the author and finisher of our faith.” They understood this was why they were here for their short tour of duty on this planet, and they let nothing distract them from their purpose. We look on in awe and admiration and are inspired.
But notice that we have this completely reversed. We are the ones in the arena. The saints are the spectators, cheering us on. In today’s epistle Paul says “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race which is set before us.” We are running the race – they have finished their race. Now is our time! It is up to us to take seriously this race we run in front of God and all of heaven, with the huge crowd of angels and saints cheering us on, doing all they can to help and encourage us! Of course we also encounter the devil and the demons booing and cursing and doing all they can to discourage us, tempting us to lose heart and abandon the race. We take comfort that they are outnumbered 2 to 1 by the angels, and we have the wonderful support of millions of the saints who have gone before us! We run our race. No-one else can run it for us. The effort we put in now will pay rewards that multiply beyond all time. The prize that awaits us at our death, at the finish line, is life abundant, beyond our most glorious imagining; communing with the Creator of all, and taking our place with our loving family in His kingdom for all of eternity. We run and fight until we die and then we truly live!
Death brings life; and living for our pleasures and passions, getting the most out of life as the world puts it, brings death. (Matt. 16:25) “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” As St. Paul says (Phil. 1:21 “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Orthodoxy is paradoxy! We hear St. Paul repeating the scripture from the book of Hosea and saying, (1 Cor. 15:55) “O death, where is your sting? O Hades where is your victory?” Through Christ’s passion, for us who are sealed in Christ, death has become our graduation day, transformed from that which we fear, into our birth into the kingdom of God. We venerate the saints on their real birthday’s – the day of their death – when they are brought fully into God’s kingdom.
What is the great chore, the huge sacrifice we must make, to be worthy to receive such a precious and wonderous treasure, to be found worthy to join with the millions of saints who have gone before us? We must give to Christ our entire life and willingly accept the love that God offers us, repent, and share that love of God with all.
We really don’t know very much about pure love. Self emptying, dying to self, real love that isn’t a fleeting feeling but action, a continuous ever-present sacrificial reality. Christ demonstrated true love for us on the cross as He laid down His life, for the life of the world. He then tells us we too must take up our cross if we wish to follow Him. We too must die to live. This occurred at our baptism. We were submerged in the waters of baptism unto death, and we arose unto eternal life. In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye we were changed. But we are then called to choose to live in this reality every day.
True love is demonstrated in our actions, not our feelings. As we allow Christ to start to penetrate our stony hearts, by throwing ourselves into His arms, His love flows through us. To our spouses, children and parents, our brothers and sisters, and even to those who are so lost and wounded that they despise and use us – our enemies – as the scripture calls them. Of course, our only real enemies are the demons, who are insanely jealous of us. They despise all of us pathetic, frail, human creatures, because God has placed the very spark of His divinity within us and enabled us to become sons of God. They feel He made a ridiculously poor decision in doing this and have rebelled ever since. They try to influence us to behave quite contrary to the potential for divinity that God has given each one of us. If we fall for their twisted suggestions, they then point and tattle “look what he did” with great satisfaction. This is why they are called “the accuser of the brethren.”
While it is true that we are weak and frail creatures, yet we are created to be gods through union with Christ. It is not humility to think we are not able to aspire to be joined with the saints – this is delusion, and a lie of the evil one. The very purpose of our life is to be enrolled with the company of the saints and commune with God. It is humility to realize we can never be deserving of this great and awesome privilege, and yet through the grace of God, this is His gift and will for us. The root word for humility is “humus” – soil. Humility is being aware of the nothingness we are without Christ, and yet being also aware that in Christ, we are the Children of God Himself. At the end of our race, may we be joined to the glorious cloud of witnesses! Through the prayers of all the saints, Lord Jesus Christ have mercy and save us.