All the Saints

All the Saints

All Saints’ Day – November 1, 2026

1 John 3:1-3

Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Brademeyer

That portion of God’s holy Word for consideration this morning is our Epistle reading from the First Epistle of St. John with special emphasis on verse two which reads as follows:

                “Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”[1]

Thus far the Scriptures.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It is a truism in Lutheran circles to talk about our practice teaching and promoting our doctrine. To put it another way, pastors can sometimes forget that not everyone else knows why we do everything that we do. This is particularly the case around how we care for the dying and funerals. Why bring this up on All Saints’ Day? Because today the Church recognizes the triumph of the saints in Christ over death and the grave.

St. John writes, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” This is the foundation of everything that we do as Christians, especially when we are confronted with death. We are children of God. We belong to Him. We have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. And because we belong to Christ, neither death nor the grave can separate us from His love. 

This is what All Saints’ Day is about. We remember those who have died in the faith, and we confess that their hope was not misplaced. When we come together as the church, even though we still struggle under the burden of sin and death, we rejoice that Christ has overcome them. And we look forward to the day when we, too, will be gathered with all the saints in the presence of our Lord beyond this vale of tears. This Christian hope is so fundamental to our faith that it shapes how we understand death, how we care for the dying, and how we bury our dead.

Our Victory over Death: Christ

St. John writes, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared.” We are God’s children now. This is not something that we must earn. It is not a title reserved for those who have lived sufficiently good lives, performed enough acts of charity, or accumulated enough religious accomplishments. We are children of God because the Father has given us His love in Jesus Christ. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, our sins are forgiven. Through Baptism, we are united with Christ and given the promise of everlasting life. Through the Word of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit creates and sustains faith in our hearts. We do not stand before God on the basis of our own merits. We stand before Him clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

This is the hope of Christians when death approaches. Our confidence does not rest upon the strength of our faith, the quality of our life, or the amount of suffering we have endured. It rests upon Christ, who died for our sins and rose again for our justification. 

When a Christian dies, the body is placed in the grave, but the soul is not abandoned to death. The souls of believers are with Christ. As St. Paul writes, to depart and be with Christ is far better.[2] The dying Christian does not enter an uncertain darkness, hoping that perhaps God will be merciful. The Christian has the promise of Jesus: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”[3] 

This is a great comfort. When we stand beside the bed of a dying Christian, we do not have to pretend that death is a pleasant thing. Death is the wages of sin. It is an enemy. It tears apart what God has joined together. It brings grief, fear, and separation. We do not need to deny these things to be faithful Christians. Instead, we get to confess that Christ has defeated this enemy.

Our hope does not stop with the soul going to heaven. We confess something more:

the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. God created us as bodily creatures. He did not make us souls trapped in bodies from which we must eventually escape. Our bodies are part of His good creation; our bodies are us, not something that we simply possess. To put it another way, your body is as much you as your soul is. This is why our salvation is earned because our Lord Jesus Christ Himself took on human flesh, suffered bodily, died bodily, and rose bodily from the grave.

Our Lord has promises that what happened to Him will happen to His people. On the Last Day, dead will be raised in their bodies. The bodies of the Christians raised on that day will be will be raised imperishable, glorious, and free from the corruption of sin. What is sown in weakness will be raised in power. What is sown perishable will be raised imperishable.

The Christian hope is not simply that we will remember those whom we love. It is not merely that their influence will live on in our lives. Our hope is that Christ will raise the dead in historical reality. This is why St. John says that when Christ appears, “we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” We do not yet see the fullness of what God has promised. We still experience sickness, aging, grief, and death. But the promise is certain because the One who makes it has already conquered the grave.

On All Saints’ Day, we must then confess that the saints who have departed in Christ are alive with Him, and that their bodies await the resurrection. We remember the faithful departed not as those whose life has simply ended, but as those who belong to the crucified and risen Lord. This fundamental truth has consequences for how we treat the dying and bury our dead.

The Christian Care of the Dying

If we believe that Christ has redeemed the whole person, body and soul, then we must care for the whole person. The Christian faith does not teach us to despise the body or treat it as an insignificant shell. The body is God's creation. It is the body that Christ assumed in the Incarnation. It is the body that Christ gave into death for our salvation. It is the body that will be raised on the Last Day. This is why Christians have long recognized that caring for the sick and dying is an important work of Christian love. The development of hospitals, hospices, and organized care for the sick has a substantial history within Christian communities. Christians established institutions of care because they believed that the suffering neighbor was someone to be served in the name of Christ.

Why? Because the suffering person is not a burden to be discarded. He or she is a neighbor whom God has placed before us to love and serve.  This means that we care for the physical needs of the dying. We seek appropriate medical treatment. We provide food, comfort, cleanliness, and companionship as circumstances permit. We do not abandon people simply because they are old, disabled, or approaching death.

  But people are not only bodies, and so we also acknowledge that human beings have spiritual needs. Physical comfort is important, but it cannot answer the question of what happens when the heart stops beating. Medical care can sometimes prolong life, relieve pain, and help a person die peacefully. It cannot forgive sins or reconcile a sinner to God. Only Christ can do that.

This is why Christians bring the comfort of the Gospel to the dying. We read God's Word. We pray with them. We remind them of their Baptism. We speak the promises of Christ. Where appropriate, the pastor administers the Lord's Supper and speaks the absolution. We do not assume that the dying need only encouragement to remain positive. They need the promises of God, which remain true even when they are too weak to speak, think clearly, or express their faith as they once did. The comfort of the Gospel does not depend on the dying person's ability to produce an impressive confession of faith. It depends on Christ, who is faithful to His promises. This is especially important when death comes with fear, confusion, or suffering. We cannot always make sense of the circumstances in which a person dies. We may struggle to understand why someone suffered for so long, why a disease progressed so quickly, or why a loved one died at a seemingly unexpected time. But we are free to say what God has promised. Christ died for sinners. Christ rose from the dead. Christ has claimed His people in Baptism. Christ will raise the bodies of His saints on the Last Day. These promises do not remove every tear from our eyes today. They do, however, give us something stronger than our feelings to hold on to. They give us the sure Word of God. And when death finally comes, the Church continues to proclaim this same hope.

Christian Funerals

A Christian funeral is not merely a ceremony to mark the passing of a person. It is a  Christian service in which the Church confesses the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, remembers God's gifts to the departed Christian, and comforts those who mourn. It is not an overstatement to say that the prevailing view of funerals as primarily or only about recollecting and reminiscing about the dead is at odds with our Christian faith and the hope it provides. Even though it is good to remember the blessing of the life we shared with those who have died, it is not the basis of our hope: Christ is. That is why the center of a Christian funeral is not the goodness of the deceased. It is the goodness of God in Jesus Christ.

This is important because death brings us face to face with the truth about ourselves. No matter how accomplished a person may have been, no matter how beloved, generous, or respected, every human being is a sinner who needs the forgiveness of Christ. If we make a funeral depend on the virtues of the deceased, we offer comfort only to the extent that we can demonstrate that the person deserves it. If we make a funeral simply a celebration of the person’s life by sharing memories, we have no comfort that there is life after death or victory over the grave.

But the Gospel offers something better. It gives us the certain hope that because Christ is the Savior of sinners, the departed faithful have the promise of everlasting life. Our comfort is not that we can construct a sufficiently positive account of someone's life. Our comfort is that Christ has died and risen for the forgiveness of sins.

A Christian funeral therefore recalls what Christ has done for the deceased. If the person was baptized, we remember that God placed His name upon that person and joined him or her to the death and resurrection of Jesus. If the person confessed the Christian faith, we give thanks for the Word through which the Holy Spirit sustained that faith. We remember the promises of the Lord, who declares that His sheep hear His voice and that no one will snatch them out of His hand.

We do not need to pretend that the deceased was without sin. We do not need to make a saint out of someone who was a sinner. The saints whom we remember today are saints because they have been made holy through Christ, not because they were morally flawless.

  After all, Christ came to save sinners, and He has accomplished the salvation that we could never accomplish for ourselves.

A Christian funeral also comforts those who mourn. The Church does not tell grieving people that they should not cry. Even Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. Christian grief is real because love is real, and separation is painful. But Christian grief is not without hope. St. Paul tells us that we do not grieve as those who have no hope, because we believe that Jesus died and rose again and that God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.[4]

We may grieve deeply. We may feel the absence of our loved ones for years. We may struggle when anniversaries come, when holidays arrive, or when an ordinary moment reminds us of someone who is no longer sitting at the table. The Christian faith does not demand that we forget or that we stop felling that absence. Rather, it directs us to Christ, who has promised that death will not have the final word.

This is why our funerals look the way they do. The funeral liturgy is designed to confess this resurrection hope founded in Christ. First, we remember Baptism. In the funeral liturgy, the body of the deceased is received with words recalling Baptism into Christ's death and resurrection. This is not a sentimental gesture. It confesses that the person's hope rests in God's promise, not in human achievement. The water of Baptism was joined to God's Word, and through it God gave His gracious promise of forgiveness and life. The promise of Baptism directs our attention to Christ, who died and rose again.

Second, we commend the dying into God's care. When the end approaches, the Church prays, speaks Scripture, and places the dying Christian into the hands of the Lord. We may pray that God would grant a peaceful departure, sustain faith, and deliver His child from the suffering of this life. We do not imagine that our prayers earn salvation. Rather, we pray because God has invited us to call upon Him and has given us His promises in Christ.

Third, we have the committal. At the grave, we commit the body to its resting place in the confident expectation of the resurrection. The grave is not the final destination of the Christian. It is a place of waiting until the Lord returns. The body is laid to rest because we believe that the Lord who raised Himself from the dead will also raise His people.

Fourth, we bury the body. Christian burial bears witness to the goodness of God's creation and to our confession of the resurrection of the body. We do not discard the body as though it were worthless after death. We treat it with reverence because it was created by God and because we await its redemption on the Last Day. Christian burial is not a requirement that limits God's power to raise the dead; God can raise His people regardless of what happens to their remains. Rather, burial is a fitting confession of the faith that the body itself will be raised. This is also why, historically, cremation was not used by Christians. The purposeful destruction of the body implies that the resurrection is not real, so it was not practiced among before the twentieth century.

Fifth, we do not make the funeral depend upon a eulogy. This practice can sometimes seem strange to those who are unfamiliar with Lutheran funeral customs. Surely, people ask, is it not right to say good things about someone who has died? Is it not proper to tell stories and celebrate a person's life? Of course, there is a place for these things. Families can gather to share memories. Friends can tell stories. We can give thanks for the ways in which God worked through a person's life to serve others. There is nothing wrong with remembering the blessings that God gave us through those whom we love.

But the funeral service itself is not primarily about what we can say about the deceased. It is about what God has said and done for the deceased in Christ. A eulogy can, and often does, unintentionally shift the foundation of our comfort from Christ's work to the deceased person's accomplishments. It can leave the family wondering whether enough good things have been said, whether the person's life measures up to the praise offered, or whether there is sufficient evidence that the person deserves eternal life.

The Gospel frees us from that burden. We do not need to prove that our loved ones were worthy of salvation. We need to hear that Jesus Christ is the Savior of sinners. We do not need to make the deceased's life appear perfect. We need the promise that Christ forgives sins and raises the dead.

A Christian funeral is centered on Christ. We give thanks for the gifts God bestowed through the departed. We mourn honestly. We proclaim the forgiveness of sins. We confess the resurrection of the body. We comfort the living with the promises of the Lord. In all of these things, the Church teaches the faith precisely when the truth of that faith is most needed.

Conclusion: Behold What Manner of Love

St. John writes, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” This confession is the center and foundation of All Saints’ Day. The saints are not people who have escaped the human condition by their own efforts. They are sinners whom Christ has redeemed. They are people who have received the Father's love, been given faith through the Holy Spirit, and been clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Some of them lived long lives. Some died young. Some died peacefully, surrounded by family and friends. Others died amid suffering, confusion, or loneliness. Some were remembered by many, while others passed from this world with few people to speak their names. But their hope was the same: Jesus Christ, crucified and risen for the forgiveness of sins.

        And the promise that sustained them sustains us. We are children of God now by baptism and faith. We do not yet see the fullness of what we will be. We still live in a world where sin brings suffering, where sickness takes its toll, and where death separates us from those whom we love. Yet these things do not nullify God's promises.

The day is coming when Christ will appear. The dead will be raised. Sin and death will be put away forever. We will see our Lord as He is, and we will be with Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

Until that day, we care for the dying because Christ has redeemed the whole person. We speak the Gospel to the suffering because Christ alone gives the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life. We bury our dead with reverence because the body is God's creation and will be raised. We conduct Christian funerals centered on Christ because our hope rests not in the achievements of the deceased, but in the finished work of our Savior.

When we mourn, we mourn as those who have hope. The love of God is not an empty sentiment. It has been revealed in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. He entered our death, bore our sins, and rose victorious from the grave. He has made us children of God, and He will not abandon those whom He has redeemed.

St. John would have you know, “Beloved, [you] are God's children now.” This is true today. It was true for the saints who have gone before us. And it will remain true when Christ returns and makes all things new. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

[1] 1 John 3:2 English Standard Version. All further quotations from the Holy Scriptures are from the ESV.

[2] Philippians 1:23

[3] Luke 23:43

[4] 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14