THE SAINTS RISE BY FALLING / All Saints Day / 1 November 2026 / Matthew 5:1-12 / Paul Bieber /

5 Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. ² And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: ³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ⁴ “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. ⁵ “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. ⁶ “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. ⁷ “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. ⁸ “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. ⁹ “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. ¹⁰ “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
¹¹ “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Matthew 5:1-12 Revised Standard Version
also
Revelation 7:9-17
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
I John 3.1-3

THE SAINTS RISE BY FALLING

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

How is it really with the saints and us? We have been baptized, made children of God, members of Christ’s body, the church, and received the Holy Spirit poured out upon us. Yet we do not think that talk of saints is about us; we say that we are only human after all, and bound to fall. What have we to do with that great multitude clad in white, standing before the throne of God?

This great cloud of witnesses, ransomed heirs of the kingdom—called, gathered, enlightened, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit in every time and every place—the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs and confessors, people of all ages and callings who now rest from their labors—all this great multitude, which no one could number, is gathered into this one day’s commemoration of all the saints.

We, all the baptized, are gathered with them in one communion. Death does not break this communion, and so we do have something to do with the saints. Indeed, in the New Testament, “the saints” is an expression used for all Christians, all the children of God, all the members of the holy church. But how can holiness, saintliness, be ascribed to such sinners and problem children as we are?

“Holy” means set apart, given over to God. Because Jesus Christ consecrated himself as a sacrifice for all, we sinners can also be consecrated to God. Just as we are, we are children of God, adopted at the baptismal font, living in forgiveness. That means that even God’s children often miss the mark. Our lives in this broken world do not display our own righteousness, but the forgiveness we seek, the forgiveness we receive as we try faithfully to follow and imitate Jesus Christ in this world.

We are children of God and trust that at the last God will make us glorious, bring us to perfection in Christ. Having this hope of glory, we are called to purify ourselves, because Jesus is pure. To claim that we are God’s children, born at the font, is to claim the hope of heaven and glory and so to purify ourselves. Yet we know that we do not have it in ourselves to strain out all of our impurities. Our hope rests on the One who fulfills this hope for us by his blood, which cleanses us of all sin.

The world is full of people who have a certain kind of hope, but a hope that rests on any foundation other than Jesus Christ is but sand, swept away when the storms of life come. The Beatitudes reverse the wisdom of the world and show us how our deepest hopes will be realized: not by being spiritual avatars, but by being poor in spirit. Not by relying on our own strength, but by mourning and meekness, hungering and thirsting for the righteousness so seldom seen in this world—except in the saints.

Even we who see so little sanctity in ourselves know it when we see it: in the merciful and the peacemakers, the holy and set apart people who we see as examples of discipleship because the relationship they bear to God is evident in their lives. They are examples of God’s mercy. And for that very reason the world is often quite merciless to them. The first saints venerated by the ancient church were the martyrs who went to their deaths bearing witness to their hope in Jesus Christ.

We venerate the saints not because of their ritual purity, doctrinal purity, or moral purity, but because they have been purified by the cross and rising of Jesus Christ. They are not sources of light for us; rather, the light of Christ is reflected in their lives of faith.

A saint is someone whose life has become an example of a blessed life, a life in conformity to the life of Jesus Christ. You look to the saints to find out whether a certain kind of life could be lived by a human being like you, and at what cost. The Beatitudes picture the saint both as receiving from God in pure passivity and as caught up in God’s action in the world. The mercy the saint receives makes him merciful; the peace God gives makes the saint a peacemaker.

As a saint, your life displays Christ without your intending some show of sanctity. Your words and deeds bear witness to where your treasure is, and your heart. The saints follow him who was meek and lowly of heart, who sees his own image reflected in them, his reflected light shining in this world. But I know that my words and deeds often reveal my own self-centered image, not the image of Christ in me. How can I, who sin daily and fall short, make any progress in holiness? How can I be called a saint?

The way to mount up is to go down. The way to mount up to heaven is to go down in humility. Look again at the Beatitudes, the description of the blessed saints given in our Gospel for this day. Most of the saints are poor and despised; the world hardly knows their names, or not at all. They are busy with the day-to-day actions of their various vocations, and no one notices. Nothing seems to come of what they do; they seem to fail. Yet they rise by falling, like the One who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many, falling into the earth like a seed that he might bear fruit in our lives.

God calls sinners and makes them holy—not with a righteousness of our own, but through faith that unites us with Christ and his forgiveness. You are a holy saint because Christ dwells within you, because the Beatitudes, Jesus Christ’s self-portrait, also describe you. Living in forgiveness, you rise to sainthood by stepping down into the humility that follows Jesus’ self-emptying path to glory. We are God’s children now, living in forgiveness, bearing witness to our hope, already participating in the kingdom. What we shall be has not yet been revealed. Martin Luther put it this way:

So long as we live here on earth, believing in his word, we are a work that God has begun, but not yet completed; but after death we shall be perfect, a divine work without sin or fault. . . . This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way.¹

Your path to holiness opens when you pursue your own vocation at home or work or school giving witness to your faith, possibly suffering rejection, but persevering. The vision of final salvation, the glory of the saints in heaven, is a call to perseverance for the saints on earth.

In this world the blessed saints are called to persevere amid the stresses and pressures of life. In God’s reversal of the world’s values, the saints in this world are poor in spirit; rich only in mercy, purity, and peace. But we have Christ. He is the One who offers forgiveness, prays to the Father for us, and will be with us always. So we may live, although we fall, rising to echo the heavenly liturgy of the saints, and so we may die, trusting in the promise that we shall come to join that great, innumerable throng gathered before the throne of grace.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber, STS
E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net
Retired Lutheran Pastor
San Diego, California, USA

     ¹ Luther, M. (1958). Luther’s works, vol. 32: Career of the Reformer II (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, & H. T. Lehmann, Eds.; p. 24). Fortress Press.