All Saints’ Day 1st November 2009

We will see him as he is, and all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. 1 John 3.2-3

We shall see him says St John. The Christian hope set forth on the Feast of All Saints is no less than this.

We shall see him and this is a call to purify ourselves, just as he is pure.

Three thoughts spring out of the scriptures set for this morning. In the first reading we are reminded that heaven is something corporate, something we shall see. In the second reading we are reminded that heaven is the vision of God no less and that is exciting. The third Gospel reading is a call to purify ourselves, just as he is pure for the Saints are those who have been poor in spirit, pure in heart and so on.

We shall see him

I don’t know how you see heaven but my wanderings round the National Gallery inform what imagery I have. That together with a natural longing to be for ever with those I have loved on earth. My favourite image in art is from Fra Angelica’s Last Judgement in San Marco, Florence. There you have a ring of saints dancing for joy on Christ’s right contrasting with a confused, disordered, anxious crowd on his left.

Heaven is for many people centred on the departed more than God but it is both that feature. You can’t have one without the other in the Christian vision. We shall see him and yet it is a vision that will be seen corporately.

The vision of God is too wonderful for me alone. As the letter to the Ephesians puts it we need power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. The vision of God can only be comprehended with all the saints. It can’t be privatised!

This is the understanding we receive from the first reading from Revelation chapter 7 which speaks of a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

Yes it’s not an image for the claustrophobic! There won’t be claustrophobia in heaven thank God! The nearest I can think of coming to this image on earth was an occasion I attended in Lourdes, the afternoon Procession of the Blessed Sacrament attended by several thousand pilgrims holding national placards – China, Australia, Romania, Canada and so on – but led by people in wheelchairs! What a powerful Christian, inclusive image.

There’s a movement called inclusive church working for women and gays. I would not dare to criticise it, of course, but inclusion in Christianity is something much more profound and far reaching than liberal Anglicanism.

True inclusivity is this – the democracy of the dead! It’s the inclusion through the Risen Christ of people from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages before the throne of God.

We shall see him. And as at Lourdes the last of us will be first. Those who’ve been bottom of the earthly heap and borne it patiently will lead us. Those from far off lands, and those missionaries who have laboured to reach them, will be up front. Those of us who’ve been complacent about the lost will lose places up front to them.

There must be some hierarchy in heaven, of that I’m sure.

Like many I visited the relics of Saint Therese of Lisieux in Westminster Cathedral last month. She likened heaven to a garden with big flowers and little flowers. She was content to be a little flower in that garden. I’d rather think of her as a heavenly rhododendron bush and myself as a dandelion or a blade of grass – anyway the Saints will be Saints together. To use Therese’s image, together they make up a garden, for which you need both grass, flowers, bushes and trees.

Some forms of Christianity are good at throwing a line to unbelievers and drawing them in. They go on to promote their spiritual development as a one to one hotline to Jesus. Today’s Feast presents the drawing power of Jesus not as a line but as a net. The communion of saints is a net that by example and prayer draws us together around the throne of God to worship him day and night within his temple.

We shall see him

Our second reading from St John’s First Letter complements the first that reminded us heaven is something corporate. It reminds us that to be a Christian is to live God centred in hope of the heavenly vision of God. Let it speak for itself: See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are…what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this; when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

I remember vividly a scene in the play A Man for All Seasons in which Thomas More stands before his accusers. He swears to be truthful saying he believes any untruthfulness will lose him the beatific vision. It is the thought of seeing God face to face that sustains him, and indeed sustains many of us in our tribulations.

This is the one true and only blessed life Saint Augustine writes to Proba that we should contemplate the delightfulness of the Lord for ever, immortal and incorruptible in body and spirit…Whoever has this will have all that he wishes…There indeed is the spring of life, which we must now thirst for in prayer, so long as we live.

To believe in heaven is to yearn for reunion with those we love but see no longer. It is a reunion of mortals after death with all the saints. Yet it is only so because God who made all and sees all for the sake of the sins of us all sent his Son to live and die and open up the kingdom of heaven to all believers. It is Christ’s resurrection that holds mortals beyond death. What other hope is there?

It is significant that in the 20th century liturgical reform no feast days are allowed to eclipse Sunday because it has been strongly redefined as the Day of Resurrection. Today is the Lord’s Day on which the Lord’s People gather around the Lord’s Table. Only two Feasts can strictly eclipse Sunday – All Saints Day and the Feast of the Virgin Mary. All Saints Feast is itself a Feast of resurrection!

We shall see him because Christ is raised to welcome his faithful who have left this world in his friendship. In the words of the liturgy There we hope to share in your glory when every tear will be wiped away. On that day we shall see you, our God, as you are. We shall become like you and praise you for ever through Christ our Lord, from whom all good things come.

We will see him as he is, and all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

The last scripture we heard this morning was the Beatitudes reading from the Sermon on the Mount. The beatific vision comes to those who live the beatitudes – those words beatific and beatitudes link to the Latin root beatus which means blessed or holy one.

The holy ones, saints, blessed ones are those who are poor in spirit, meek, merciful, pure in heart, and peacemakers who mourn for the lost and bear persecution for righteousness sake. All of the qualities Our Lord lists are in his own person, so to be a beatus, a saint, is to be Christ-like.

In Christ there is no sin. In us there is sin and the need to be purified throughout our lives. This is why we offered the ministry of reconciliation, confession, before today’s feast, not that purification from sin occurs only in that way, but as a means of grace some find helpful to overcome the lower nature.

Today is All Saints Day and the focus is on heaven. Tomorrow is All Souls Day and the focus there will be on the purification from sin we need to get to heaven in this world and the next. It says of heaven in the second to last chapter of the Bible that no unclean thing will enter there (Revelation 21.27). That is why we pray for those who have died with unrepented sin that they will be cleansed and fitted for the vision of God.

All Saints Feast is a call to purify ourselves, just as he is pure. We won’t have eyes to see God without purification. This is a painful truth. Heaven isn’t automatic. It is the fulfilment of your desire for God. The whole of our earthly life is not the book of our life but its preface in which we learn an eager longing for God so that it can be satisfied in his praise and service in the real life to come.

To live in such a comfortable society is no blessing when it comes to getting to heaven for being comfortable flannels self love and heaven is for selfless love. Being comfortable panders to my needs whereas the ultimate Christian vision is corporate, one in which the least brother or sister is to be seen as the most important.

May this Feast of All Saints bring us comfort and discomfort.

We shall see him as he is – what a comforting thought!

And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. How discomforting!

There is work ahead for us all!