All Saints' Sunday
O ALMIGHTY God, who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord; Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys which thou hast prepared for those who unfeignedly love thee; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Marrietta, Georgia, November 1, 1863
"If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself."
"This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven."
"From whence also we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ."
"Looking for that blessed hope."
"Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God."
"When he shall appear we shall be made like him."
"Even so, come Lord Jesus."
HEB. XI, 40: "that they without us shall not be made perfect."
To-day is All-Saints' day. We to-day commemorate all those who "having finished their course in faith, do now rest from their labors." That long line of faithful ones, of whom St. Paul, in the chapter of which the text is the conclusion, gives only a few note-worthy Scripture names, has been year by year, rapidly and steadily augmenting. It now includes many familiar to our minds and dear to our hearts. Towards that great "cloud of witnesses" all living saints are steadily advancing and rapidly passing. A few years and we, too, shall have been numbered with the dead. God grant to all of us, that then we may be reckoned among those, of whom a future generation may take up the strain of Apostolic rapture, "These all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they, without us, should not be made perfect."
Yes, we can hope for no better condition after death, and, before the resurrection, than all the saints of all the former ages have enjoyed. They, in their triumphant, their blessed state, still wait for us. How near this thought brings all the departed good to us! not gone on to their eternal, their final reward, and, for the present separated from us in hope and sympathy; but, still with us in a state of expectancy, with us, waiting for a still brighter day, for a still more glorious fruition. Abraham and Moses, and Joseph and David, and all the saints of the world's earlier days have not yet received the promise! Why? ... "God having provided some better thing for us" also, "that they without us should not be made perfect."
In these words, is, we say, contained the doctrine of the intermediate state of the departed saints; a doctrine which comes naturally to our thoughts, when we dwell upon the memory of those who, once with us in the communion of the Church on earth, are still with us in the communion of Christ's body, although taken from our presence and our sight. One with us still! How? As the angels are? No, not so. In a closer, in a still nearer sense. Still related to us, by the ties of a mortal nature; still destined with us to the glad bursting of the resurrection morn; still to pass with us the ordeal of the judgment; still with us to hear the approval "well done" from the lips of our Judge; and still, with us, to be admitted for the first time, "to the kingdom prepared" for us and for them "from the foundation of the world." There is, we maintain, in this doctrine, a peculiarly sweet and animating reflection: the dead in Christ, our own loved ones gone before, still waiting for us, still delaying their entrance into their highest glory, till we with them can enter there.....the blessed dead, full of present peace and of joyous hope wait for us. In such a happy state, and with such a blessed hope, a few years, or even a few centuries, are in comparison with the eternity before them, but a waiting moment. They wait in joy, and when the appointed time shall come, when the number of the elect shall be completed, then again, as once for Jesus, our ascending Lord, so now for those, who are made like unto Him, shall the everlasting gates lift up their festal heads, and all the saints together shall go in and sit down at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb....
Let us ever, my brethren, remember that... book of God's account, and strive so to keep our place in His family that from the Church Militant on earth, we may pass to the blessed company of the faithful dead, who, in the Church Expectant, wait, in sure and certain hope, for their perfect consummation and bliss in the Church Triumphant, in the immediate presence of Christ, our risen and glorified Lord. "The Spirit and the Bride say, come--and let him that is athirst come." Do not these sweet words of invitation from the Bride of Christ, this gentle persuasion of the Holy Spirit, come to you to-day, with a strange new power and tenderness --blended as they are, with the voices of the fondly remembered, the loved, the sainted dead? Can you not hear them say, "Come, for all things are now ready." Yet there is room. Room at this table of our Lord, room in our expectant ranks--room at that feast above, to which, we wait, with you to enter. And now to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our Faith, our risen and glorified Lord, be ascribed, with the Father and Holy Ghost, as by the angels in Heaven and the saints in Paradise, so by the Church on earth, all the honor and the praise, forever and forever. Amen
Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of those who depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh are in joy and felicity: we give thee hearty thanks for the good examples of all those thy servants, who, having finished their course in faith, do now rest from their labors. And we beseech thee, that we, with all those who have departed in the true faith of thy holy name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in thy eternal and everlasting glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Read the entire sermon at Documenting the American South.
Extracted by The Rev. Mark Carroll... opening prayer from the Book of Common Prayer for All Saints' Day.