Give Us This Day
Revelation 7:2-17
Matthew 5:1-12
Who our heroes are tell us a lot about ourselves. The heroes of a culture are the people we look up to, the people who inspire us, and the people we want to imitate. Judging from money and attention paid to people in our culture, and judging from commercials and magazine covers, our heroes are pop stars from the entertainment world of music and movies, and athletes.
Growing up, my hero was Jim Ryun who held the world record in the mile at 3 minutes and 51.1 seconds, and to a lesser degree, Gill Dodds, the “Flying Parson” who held the indoor record mile in the 1940s, refused to run on Sundays, and coached my dad at Wheaton College.
Now my heroes are people like St. Paul, St. Athanasius, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, John Keble, and a constellation of other saints.
Today I’m interested in something even deeper than knowing who your personal heroes are. I want to challenge you to ask yourself the question: “Am I a hero?”
Webster’s definition of “hero” is (and I quote directly):
“A man noted for his courageous acts or nobility of purpose, esp. one who has risked or sacrificed his life.”
Isn’t that the kind of hero that God is, in fact, asking all of you to be?
And yet God isn’t calling us to be heroes for our own sake or glory, so something’s still missing.
I believe that being a true hero is a glorious consequence of being something else God has surely called you to be: a saint. And so today, I want us to meditate on what it means to be saints who are heroes.
Saints are those who see God, are made holy by God, and therefore become the heroes of the world.
Unfortunately, the word “saint” is badly misunderstood. “Saint” comes from the Latin santa for “holy.” This is the sense in which the Bible calls all Christians “saints.”
Biblically speaking, a saint is a “holy one,” made holy not by the miraculous things he or she has done but by the miracle of salvation which is Christ’s alone. We are saints, holy, because Jesus Christ has washed us in His Blood, and we are now clean before God. We are saints because we are united to the Holy One by baptism and by faith.
St. John gives us a picture of these saints in Revelation 7, even though he doesn’t use the word. In verse 14 we learn that they “have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” And that is the biblical definition of a saint: one who has been sanctified (“saintified”), one who has been made holy by the blood of Jesus Christ.
You, if you have been made holy by the blood of Jesus Christ, through a true and living faith in His name, are a saint.
Saints are those who see God.
In the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:8, we hear” “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
And in Revelation 7, we have a picture of the multitude of saints who are gathered around the throne of God, beholding His glory and worshiping Him.
How shall I see God?
To see God, to be a saint, you must 1st seek God.
But how can I seek God when my faith is weak and my spiritual sight is dim?
Seek Him in your prayers.
Seek Him in His Word and Sacraments.
Seek Him in His Church, among His people.
And seek Him in His world, for as Gerard Manly Hopkins has said, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.”
Something miraculous happens when saints seek God and see Him: they are transformed.
They receive the blessing of God. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
In Revelation 7, we hear that in heaven the saints will neither hunger nor thirst anymore. The sun shall not strike them nor heat. The Lamb will shepherd them and lead them to the living fountain of waters. And God shall wipe every tear from their eyes.
Even on earth, the saints of God receive the blessing of God: why? Because fundamentally to be a saint means to be in the very presence of God.
What happens when you spend a lot of time around certain people? You become more like them.
Children imitate and become like their parents. I know – it’s a scary thought for both parent and child – but it’s true.
In God’s presence, we saints are made more like Him:
We become holy
We receive His glory and light
We are equipped to do His holy will
Ultimately, having seen God and been transformed by Him into His image, saints become heroes.
How can it be otherwise, since the Hero of Heroes is none other than Jesus Christ Himself?
What if our definition of hero read thus: “One, born of God, who is favored by God, endowed by the Holy Spirit with great courage and strength, and celebrated for his bold exploits in the Kingdom of God.”
Isn’t that what we find in the Hero of Heroes? One born of God of the Virgin Mary; favored by God as His own beloved Son; conceived by the Holy Spirit and baptized by Him with great courage and strength to do bold exploits for the Kingdom of God; and therefore justly celebrated”?
The truth is, we will have heroes. The only question is “Who will those heroes be?”
For centuries, saints in heaven have been the heroes of the saints on earth.
We rejoice in St. Augustine’s conversion to Christ and are inspired by St. Patrick’s ceaseless labors to convert the Irish. We celebrate St. Luther’s heroic cleansing of the church and are encouraged by the courage of Sts. Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, the Oxford Martyrs.
But where are the heroes today?
You’ll find them wherever you find the saints of God, those who have so seen God and been transformed by Him that they become the heroes of the world. You’ll find them in this very room in the house of God.
Each of you is called by God to be not only a saint but also, therefore, a hero. You don’t have to convert the Irish or even your local tribe to be a saint who is a hero. You just have to be a saint who seeks God, and, having seen God, be transformed by His holy presence in your life.
If you see the Lord and spend time in His presence, being transformed by it, you will go out and bring others to Christ, even as the 1st disciples did.
If you are first a saint, then your life will be that of a hero.
Who, therefore, are some of the saints and heroes that we see every day? It’s not those wearing white robes in heaven, and it’s not those being burned at the stake for Christ’s sake. But we see saints and heroes wherever we see God’s people living holy lives for the sake of Christ and His glorious Kingdom.
We see those who quietly offer up their suffering to the Lord. One who suffers without grumbling or blaming God or others, but suffers with joy, knowing that she is suffering for and through and with Jesus Christ. Such people are truly saints – those made holy by God, and they are worthy of imitation.
Those who persevere in prayer, and those who dare to tell someone why they love their Lord and God; those who labor diligently at their work as unto the Lord, and those who practice hospitality and almsgiving. These, too, are the saints and heroes that surround us.
The saints of God are still walking the earth, here in your hometown. They are the ones who sing with the four living creatures and angels and archangels, whenever they join their earthly worship to the worship in heaven. And they are the ones who one day will neither hunger nor thirst anymore, for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
They are the ones who see God, are transformed by God, and become the heroes of the world.
Jan van Eyck – Adoration of the Lamb – in U.S. Public Domain
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