How Do We Properly Honor the Saints?
Matthew 5:1–12
Seeing the crowds, [Jesus] went up on the mountain, and when He sat down, His disciples came to Him. And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (ESV)
Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, we thank and praise you for the right and privilege to be called your children; that you have cleansed us through the blood of your holy Son and declared us holy through faith in him. As you have graciously called us through your Word, we pray that you increase our faith and trust in that same word, so that we may have confidence to live as your blood bought Saints and increase in all Christian love and virtue. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.
Dear saints in Christ, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb,
At the heart of the Lutheran Reformation was the teaching that we are justified completely by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone which is revealed to us in Scripture alone. If this teaching is lost, then we lose the faith. We are saved by grace, not by works. While this is the heart and center of the Christian faith, and the Lutheran Reformation, there were also many other false teachings that had crept into the church. One was regarding the invocation of the saints. The Medieval Catholic Church taught that you could pray to the saints in heaven and that they could serve as intercessors on your behalf. They taught that the good lives or merits of the saints could be applied to you. But this is not the teaching of Scripture. There is no place in the Bible that tells us we are to pray to saints. There is no place in the Bible that teaches that the good works of another can be applied to us. Not only does the Bible not tell us to pray to the saints, but our confessions explain the greatest danger of this false teaching, “[it] obscures the office of Christ and transfers to the saints the confidence that we should place in the mercy of Christ” (Apology XXI par. 15).
Jesus is our hope and life. He is the one who fulfilled the law in our place and who suffered for our sins on the cross so that we could be forgiven. He is the one who sits at the Father’s right hand and makes intercessions on our behalf. He is our Mediator. Jesus loves us and he invites us to come to him with our burdens, struggles, and needs. We don’t need to ask anyone else—why would we? We have Jesus. He is our Savior who can sympathize with our weaknesses because he was a man just as we are, but without sin, and he can actually do something to help us. This is why Christians run to Christ, believe in him, trust in him for our salvation, and bring their concerns and needs to him in prayer. We worship God alone.
The Bible doesn’t teach us to worship the saints or pray to them, but it does teach us to remember and honor the saints. So, a good question that we should ask ourselves is: “How do we properly honor the saints?”
Our honor of the saints is threefold, and this is spelled out in our Lutheran Confessions. The first is thanksgiving—we ought to give thanks to God because he has given us examples of his mercy, because he has shown that he wants to save mankind. And this gets to a very important point—no one deserves to be saved. No one deserves to be called a saint by their efforts, because everyone has fallen short of the glory of God. Only God makes a sinner a saint—he does this by creating faith in us so that we could be called sons of God. All baptized believers receive what belongs to Jesus—his righteousness and the forgiveness of sins he earned by his sacrificial death on the cross, the promise of the resurrection, and the promise to reign with him for all eternity. And for this, we should give thanks! God is good and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.
Secondly, honoring the saints is for the strengthening of our faith. This is helpful when we consider our Gospel lesson this morning. Today, we heard the beatitudes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Here Jesus gives us a beautiful picture and description of believers. They are poor in spirit, meaning that they come before God as humble beggars in need of mercy. They mourn over their sin, bear their crosses with meekness, and hunger and thirst for Christ’s righteousness. This faith in Christ is expressed in a life of love and virtue. Christians are merciful to the spiritual and temporal needs of others, because they know the mercy they have received. They are pure in heart and peacemakers. When life gets rough, when they are persecuted, made fun of, threatened, or beaten—they rejoice! Christians rejoice because they are taking up their cross and following Christ.
This is a beautiful description of Christians. So beautiful, that I wonder who of us can look in the mirror and say, “Yes, that’s me!” Are you always meek and pursuing peace, or do you get prideful before God and stir up trouble? Do you seek God’s Word and righteousness above everything this else, or have you at times pursued the fleeting pleasures of this world? When troubles come your way, do you rejoice and thank God? Or do you complain and get upset with God?
Many people find themselves in despair, because when they take an honest look at themselves—they don’t see the person Jesus describes. They see a sinner who has failed. They see a husband or wife who has failed to love their spouse as they should, a parent who has failed in their parenting, a person who has disobeyed a holy God and failed to love their neighbor.
And this is why the saints can be examples for the strengthening of our faith—we see Peter who was forgiven by Jesus after his denial, King David who after he had committed adultery and murder, repented, and was forgiven by God, or the woman who was caught in adultery, forgiven by Jesus! We see people who have fallen short, but who were shown mercy and forgiven by God. The saints give us evidence and encourage us that God’s grace superabounds over our sin.
How is this possible? Because of Jesus. The Beatitudes are not just a description of Christians. They are God’s blessed promises to believers because of the One who lived out the Beatitudes. For it was Jesus who humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death on the cross, so that the kingdom of heaven could be yours. Who in meekness, “when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously” (I Peter 2:23), bearing our sins on the tree, so that we could be healed. From manger, cross, and grave Jesus sought our salvation and redemption so that he could offer us the forgiveness which alone can satisfy our hunger and thirst for righteousness. He is the Prince of Peace, who came to make peace between God and man, by giving himself as a ransom for all people, paying for our sin and winning the victory, so that he could declare us saints—his dear forgiven children—through faith in him.
In John’s great vision, we learn that those in heaven weren’t there because of their great qualifications—their perfect lives. Instead, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” What Isaiah prophesied is our future reality: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18).
The third and final honor of the saints is imitation. We imitate their faith in God and then their other virtues, according to our various callings. We all need role models and heroes. It’s good for us to have Christian examples of those who have experienced similar trials in this life.
Perhaps you have been betrayed and hurt by others and you think your grudge is justifiable. Then there is no better example of forgiveness in human relationships than Joseph, who even after being sold into slavery by his brothers, forgave them. He even testified that while they meant evil for him, God turned into good. We know that God works all things for good to those who love God.
Maybe you are feeling fearful. The election is about to happen, and you don’t know what it will bring. Perhaps, you are afraid of what life could be like for Christians under different presidents. What better example of remaining faithful despite who is king, than Daniel, who trusted in God’s power and remained faithful, even when he was commanded to deny his God. We have the same God who protected Daniel in the lions’ den. We should seek to emulate his unwavering trust in God and willingness to confess his faith no matter the consequences. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
If you are persecuted for remaining faithful to Jesus, you are in good company, “for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” But these troubles are a lot easier in theory than in reality. We don’t always feel like rejoicing as we bear our crosses in this life. But God gives us a vision of heaven, so that we don’t lose hope. You know your future. You are blessed! We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, who have persevered and who looked forward to a heavenly country, and Scripture says of them, “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.”
The proper honor of the saints points us to our dear Lord Jesus, who has declared us saints through faith in him. The saints serve as faithful examples of those who have confessed the faith and now enjoy heavenly bliss. They have finished the race, but we still run. May their testimony give us confidence to run the race, knowing that God is with us, forgiving and strengthening us through his means of grace until we at last join the saints in heaven and see our Lord face to face, where the Lamb will be our shepherd, “and He will guide [us] to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes.” Amen.