Ever seen the movie 'Millions?' You should. Especially at this time of year. Here's the trailer.
This movie is right on the money. It's really good. Kinda getting choked up just watching the TRAILER. What, is someone playing 'for all the saints' in here or something? Anyhow, the movie deals with a very nice boy who comes across a lot of money that was stolen in a bank heist (that's all in the trailer, don't worry). But, in breaking with the 'imagination' that the trailer gives you, he's seeing saints. Saints that he knows about. Saints that make up the life and world of how most people in the west would have formed their years. The patterns of their lives would have been structured around saints days, and the lives of the saints would have been in their thoughts throughout the year. Saints that none of us even know anymore would have been extremely well known to them. The most well known saints today are Patrick and Valentine, because their days are celebrated still. Anyone who tells you that you can remove celebrations, observances, and things of that nature and that people will still know their history is very wrong. The average person cares nothing for history, their own or anyone else's. It is there, then it is gone, and ceases to exist. So, if these saints are not being kept forefront of mind, they will be completely forgotten. Which they are.
But on the day of All Hallow's day, we celebrate all the saints. That's a bit of a grab bag, isn't it? To celebrate all the saints? How can you fit all of them in? There are scores and scores of them, depending on who you trust, who you believe, and who you listen to. And if you listen to God, well, there are a lot of saints indeed.
So who are the saints you know best? Oh, sure, you can say Patrick, Peter, James or John, but in many ways that's not the point. The stories of the Saints are there to galvanize and energize you, to get you thinking about the work of Christ in your life, and what he does for you. To equip you to be a witness for your Lord in the real world, as the saints had to do. But you don't know those saints anywhere near as well as you know the saints in your own life. Who are they?
Just like in Millions, those saints are the ones whom you know best. Parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings and niblings, all the people whom you love who have predeceased you. For in Lutheran theology, we are explained as being saints and sinners at the same time. That is, we are holy, redeemed children of God, and we are also children of dust who do the wrong thing. Saints and sinners at the same time. And we see that in the Bible. Very few people in the scriptures come off flawlessly. Only Christ. Everyone else is an example of someone who needs to be saved, right? Someone who needs to be redeemed, someone who has to have their sins forgiven. And that's what makes them saints.
What makes them saints is their forgiveness of sins, the fact that they were redeemed by Christ, not that they were perfect. If you look through the Bible, you won't find even the saints looking good, you know. But you will find people who make mistakes, who get things wrong, and who are still beloved by Christ, as redeemed children of the light.
Sort of like the saints you know best.
On all saints day, you don't have to pretend anything about your favorite saints. They are who they are, and they were who they were. They're children of the light, favored by God because of Christ. The saints who you and I love best, that's sort of the apex of the Christian faith for a hurting world. We need to hear this now, that Christ Jesus calls all these people to himself, which is the only thing that can really give us any kind of hope, or life in a world that is falling apart. All the saints.
Don't focus on all those saints that you think you're supposed to think about, think about the saints that you love best. and know that God desperately wants you all to be together. Forever.
