All Saints’ Day (Matthew 5:1-12)  11/06/2011

This morning we celebrate the feast of All Saints’ Day. The feast of All Saints’ is a day of celebration and thanksgiving for the saints who have gone before us. In the most stringent understanding of “saint,” those given the saintly title have been those who have exemplified a Christian life of sacrifice and loving care toward others; a life that has been carefully examined and granted a status that is seemingly beyond the reach of most of us. However, the more modern understanding (and by modern I mean the last 500 hundred years or so) of a saintly life is typically more broad, hoping to capture the essence of what the saints of God strive to be – the life of one who claims to be a child of God and a follower of his only Son, Jesus Christ. As we sang in our opening hymn this morning, “I sing a song of the saints of God,” and we can all hope to be one too! Continue reading →