All Saints Day

Revelation 7:2-17

November 1, 2026

An angel arises in the east. He bears “the seal of the living God,” the authority to stamp with the Lord’s mark, protecting them from danger.

That’s how the first reading for All Saints Day begins. It’s from the book of Revelation. The Greek name is The Apokalypse. Elections generate apocalyptic talk. All my lifetime the apocalypse has been imminent. First it was the coming ice age. Then global warming. The cold war. Red Dawn. Blackhawk Down. Apocalypse Now. Heart of Darkness. The Berlin Wall fell, but socialism is on the rise.

The apocalypse may be at our door, but it won’t be the one everyone is talking about. Everything will be as it was before the flood. Eating and drinking, buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage. Repent, lest a worse thing befall you.

The Apocaplyse of St. John the Theologian, which we just call Revelation, was written for first-century Christians. They lived in seven cities within Babylon, code for the Roman Empire. It’s preparing them for persecution. And calling them to repentance. The Apocalypse was good news for those disciples of Jesus.

We live in a different world. But we still face tribulations. And we still need to repent. The Apokalypse is coming.

I read recently about trouble in another church body. A bishop was on trial. The judgment found conditions in his diocese marked by “isolation, authoritarian submission, doubt, hopelessness, and deceit.” Doubt and hopelessness stood out to me. You expect that in the world. When it invades the church, where can you turn?

Have you experienced the long dark night of the soul? Hear the cries at a sudden death. See the dissolution of a marriage. Visit the graveyard. Watch someone succumb to rage, abandon a friend, embrace the darkness. The world can only offer doubt and hopelessness.

Yet the angel rises from the east. He has the seal, the stamp, the mark, the sign of the cross. “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” Who are these servants? 144,000: 12 x 12 x 1,000. Twelve tribes, twelve apostles, the whole people of God, times a thousand. It’s complete, full, the totality of God’s plan. It then spills over beyond counting:

“Behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”

The great commission fulfilled, disciples from all nations, worshipping the Lamb. We know this Lamb. John the Baptist told us to follow Him. Pointing to Jesus, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” That’s the answer to your doubt, your hopelessness, your isolation, and those who would deceive you.

In his vision, St. John the Evangelist sees this multitude, “clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.” These are the saints, the holy ones. They are not holy by their works. Their holiness is derived from the One to whom they wave their palm branches.

You have stood there too, outside the church, waiting to hear the good news – the good news that Jesus is coming, entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. We have heard what He did. He raised Lazarus, four days dead. His stinking corpse is made alive, fragrant with olive oil and incense. The bread is broken and the wine is poured. The Passover is coming, the marriage feast is beginning, the Lamb is Priest and Host and Guest and Meal.

We could never earn this salvation. We cannot gamble or work or bargain or steal our way out of our doubt and hopelessness. But salvation doesn’t belong to us to achieve.

“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

The angels and elders and living creatures join the song:

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

It begins and ends with Amen – “Yes, yes, it shall be so.” This is true. The doubt and hopelessness, the pain and the death, they are put away. Amen, this is true! Truth Himself speaks truly, or there’s nothing true.

But it doesn’t come immediately. There is no purgatory, but this life is a purgation, a cleansing from all our folly. How much of our lives have we wasted on foolish pursuits? You seek pleasure in pixels, but lurking on the other side of the screen are demons. You seek numbness in a bottle, but it only leaves you with acid burning holes inside you, to match the hole in your soul that can be filled by nothing except the Creator who made you for Himself.

You won’t work your way out of the doubt and despair. You can’t undo the divorce, or make yourself pure again from all that has defiled you. But you can throw it all into the cleansing waters flowing from the pierced side of the Lamb. His blood cleanses you from all sin.

All these clothed in white robes, from where did they come?

“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.”

Tribulation was upon those first-century disciples of Jesus. Hatred from the synagogue, hatred from the emperor, hatred from those who would not heed the call to repentance. Speaking by the Holy Spirit, St. John called them to repentance and fidelity. The way through tribulation is trust in Jesus. The way through the darkness is the Light of His Word.

Many heard the call. They did not love their lives to the death. When Rome demanded burning incense to Caesar, they would not. Jesus is Lord. He is King. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

He is the way through the tribulation. So they were burned, they were beheaded, they were crucified. Nero turned them into torches. But their trust was not in an emperor. Their security was not found in investments. Their inheritance was in the kingdom beyond this one. They did not seek pleasure in bed. They cared nothing for their reputation among those who worshipped demons.

“Therefore they are before the throne of God,

and serve him day and night in his temple;

and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;

the sun shall not strike them,

nor any scorching heat.

For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,

and he will guide them to springs of living water,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

What tribulations do you face? You have not yet suffered to the point of bloodshed. Look at the saints of old, and recall how they did not cower in the face of evil. They did not succumb to the darkness. They were not blinded by deceit.

Were they rejected by family and friends? Certainly.

Did they lose jobs? Yes.

It mattered not. And neither does it in our age, where the rumored apocalypses are merely tools of those who would control our minds.

Put not your trust in princes, or senators. Vote no on amendments one and two, because it’s the right thing to do, but don’t imagine it will usher in the kingdom of God. That’s not up for a vote. Our Lord Jesus already sits upon the throne. His blood cleanses you from all sins.

You are those who shall come through the great tribulation. For your robes are washed in the blood of the Lamb. His cross is on your foreheads. You are baptized, you are redeemed, you are His. In Him shall you live, in Him shall you die, and His shall you be forever. +INJ+