Isaiah 25:6-9; John 11:32-44
All Saints Day
St Barbara’s 03.11.2024
Rev Tulo Raistrick
I wonder, who has been an inspirational figure to you in your life? Who have you looked up to and wanted to be like?
Maybe they have been your mother or father, and you have felt, when I grow up, I want to be like them, I want to be a parent like them, or I want to grow old like them.
Maybe they have been a teacher or a coach who really believed in you, who thought you could be the best student, the best tennis player, the best musician, etc, you could possibly be, someone who has so inspired you that you wanted to emulate them.
Maybe they have been a political leader who has exuded such integrity, vision, courage, dynamism, that you have thought, I want to be like them.
Or maybe a business or charity leader, who has achieved something extraordinary.
I wonder, who has been an inspiration to you in your life?
Being inspired by others is really important. The example of others can encourage us to think we can do something too.
I remember struggling with a big decision sat in the crypt of St Martin’s in the Fields in London, and then my eye happened to be caught by a picture of Nelson Mandela, who had recently died. I thought of the incredible sacrifices he had made, the incredible obstacles he had to overcome, and it helped me to gain the inspiration to gain clarity on the way ahead for myself.
Our lives are poorer, our lives are more earth-bound, if we do not have people who inspire us to achieve greater things or live better lives.
And so I wonder, who inspires us in our Christian lives? Who inspires us to live lives that hunger and thirst for righteousness, who lead us to want to pray more, to serve more, to grow deeper in our knowledge and love of God?
They may be public figures known for their Christian faith – Mother Therese or Desmond Tutu come to my mind – but often the people who have been our real inspirations are friends, or family or colleagues whose lives spoke to us. Ordinary people but living in extraordinary ways.
I think of a fellow student at university whose prayerfulness, whose willingness to choose to step outside the social pressures of university life to give time in her life to pray, inspired me to start praying.
I think of two friends whose hospitality and kindness, whose willingness to open their home and give generously to those in need, whether it was giving a homeless person a bed for the night, a hot meal, clothes, or time spent with them helping them find work or advocating on their behalf, has been an inspiration and a challenge to me ever since.
I think of an older friend who took me under his wing when I was a teenager and through patience and perseverance helped me to grow in my fledgling faith in God.
There are many more. People who have inspired me to live the Christian life, who have shown me what it is to follow Christ. Some of those people who have inspired me sit here in this congregation this morning.
None of these people are perfect and indeed they would probably be a bit embarrassed if they knew I had mentioned them this morning, but they have shown me glimpses of what it means to follow Christ.
I wonder who has inspired you? Who do you look to, who has given you a vision of how the Christian life can be lived?
Today, All Saints Day, we stop to give thanks for those who have been our inspiration in faith. Some of those saints may be saints from the distant past. Saints from the Bible such as Saint Peter and Saint Paul, people whose lives were full of failings and rough edges, and yet were used by God. Some may be saints from throughout the centuries, saints such as the celtic missionaries of Northumberland, Aidan and Cuthbert, or Francis of Assisi, or those who wrote profound spiritual books such as Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen and Teresa of Avila. We remember those who were willing to die for their faith, martyrs such as Stephen, Barbara, after whom this church is named, and those of recent times such as Janani Luwum of Uganda, Dietrich Bonhoeffer of Germany and Oscar Romero of San Salvador.
Some of those saints we stop to give thanks for may be less well-known – saints who touched our lives personally – but have now departed this life: family members, friends, colleagues. Some of those we will be remembering this afternoon in our service of commemoration and thanksgiving maybe those saints we have been thinking of.
And some of those saints maybe are alive today.
We regularly hear the phrase “They’re no saint!”, as if by inference, being a saint is someone who is holy and perfect in every way. That is not how the New Testament saw it. Indeed Paul and Peter in their letters used the words “saints” and “Christians” interchangeably. All who follow Christ are saints. All who follow Christ can show Christ to the world and be an inspiration of faith.
So now, on this day when we celebrate All Saints, let us do three things:
Firstly, lets just pause and give thanks for the work of grace in saints we know who have been an inspiration to us. Let us pause and be grateful that God has touched us through the lives of others, living and dead. Why not think of one person now that you particularly want to thank God for. And lets take a moment of silence to give thanks to God for them.
Second, let us be shaped by those qualities of God those saints have shown to us – whether that is courage, or kindness, or prayerfulness, or hospitality, or perseverance, or holiness, or justice – so that in turn others may see in us something of God’s grace and light, and give thanks. May we be an inspiration to others just as others have been an inspiration to us. Take time now and ask God to prompt you as to what quality he is wanting to inspire and nurture in you this day.
And thirdly, let us look forward to the glorious day when all the saints in heaven and earth will be united, when death will no longer be a divide, but we will all be together, from across the centuries and across the world, worshipping before the throne of God.
The story of Lazarus being brought back from the dead gives us a foretaste of what Christ will do through his death and resurrection – ensuring that death is not the end but the doorway into eternal life in God’s presence.
And the reading from Isaiah gives us a wonderful vision of what is to come. Heaven is imagined as a joyous banquet, with the best food and drink, where all people, all those who have gone before us, are gathered. Its a place where death is no more, where tears and sadness have been wiped away, where there is no more guilt or shame. A place where we will be reunited with all the saints in glory. Let us take a moment to quietly give thanks to God for the promise of eternal life that is to come, for us and for all those whom we love.
