NOVEMBER PASTOR’S PONDERINGS

November 1st is All Saints Day. Most Protestants are more familiar with the evening before, known as “All Hallows Eve,” now shortened to “Halloween.” The day is a feast day in the liturgical church, a day of remembrance and veneration of those who died in the faith but not well enough known to have a day dedicated to their own remembrance. A simple internet search on the phrase rewards one with the understanding that the day is a celebration of saints and martyrs both “known and unknown.” And that brings 3 Bible passages and thoughts to mind.
In Acts 17.16ff, Paul was in Athens and saw the idol to the “unknown god.” The people were so afraid that they might have missed a god in their attempt to venerate them all, that they took no chances, building another altar to appease that unidentified god. Some who choose to celebrate feast days to venerated “saints” do so because they want some special grace or merit they think that saint can provide. In Acts 17, Paul makes clear that man’s only hope is in Jesus Christ, and he calls the men of Athens, and us, to repentance and trust in Christ. Belief in anything else is superstition.
Because of such superstition, most Protestants have simply ignored days dedicated to “saints.” In so doing we have missed out on one of the benefits such days afford. Some suggest that All Saints Day is a kind of “Memorial Day” for the Church, a day on which we honor those who gave their lives for the faith once delivered, those who remained faithful even unto death. One of the sad things of our time is that we either ignore or rewrite history. Hebrews 12.1 says “we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.” The word “witnesses,” which in the Greek is literally “martyrs,” means those who have testified to the truth. We need to remember those who have gone before and who faithfully held to and taught the Word of God so that we could have it, could know the God Who gave it, and whose lives set examples of how to conduct oneself in a world alien to righteousness and the Gospel and an enemy to Christ.
My final thought has to do with the idea of “saints.” Those naming this day wanted to honor those they thought “special” in some way. So, they called them “saints,” or holy ones. But these were no “super-Christians;” they were, like you and me, ordinary people who had been with Jesus, (see last month’s “Pastor’s Ponderings.”) In nearly all of Paul’s letters he calls the people to whom he writes “saints.” All of us who put our trust in Christ are “saints.” All believers, all Christians, are saints. We have no special merit or grace to pass on to another generation, but we all have a responsibility to set the example before those around us and those to come of what living by grace and for the glory of God in a fallen world looks like.
So this November, and especially the 1st, let me suggest that you affirm your faith in Christ, that you praise Him that He has made you holy, that you commit yourself to being an example of Godliness in this fallen world, and that you commit to learning of and praising God for the examples of those who have gone before. I know, that’s a lot to think about, but you can do it.

– Pastor Jim