Free Life

(Isaiah 25:8; Revelation 21:5)

This Sunday when we celebrate all the saints in Christ we hear one more time God’s promise that our transgressions will be forgiven and no longer remembered. However, this time around God paraphrases God using a different voice. The prophet Isaiah declares that God will destroy the shroud that is cast over the sins of all his people and that the disgrace of humankind will be taken away from all the earth. Again God leaves us with nothing else but to be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

All Christians can indeed claim that Jesus is not only the Word of God (John 1:1) but also the fulfillment of such Word present both in the old and new testament (Matthew 5:17).  We give thanks and remember when at the beginning of our journey we receive faith as a gift from the Spirit in baptism and were therefore clothed with Christ. The same garment that we also bring about at the end when we commend each other to the throne of the lamb declaring the forgiveness of all the sins.

Yet, we resist God’s graceful proclamation and the promise of salvation. We forget that God chose to come down and dwell with us out of his good pleasure. We judge. We condemn. We injure. We divide.  There are still tribulations. There is still mourning. There is still pain.

More than ever we need the promise and the assurance of God’s graceful redemption through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord. “Words that are trustworthy and true”. Words that save us to live freely, faithfully, and abundantly. Therefore, we teach and proclaim that we are all sinners, made saints only by God’s grace, through faith in Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 24; Revelation 21:1-6a; John 11:32-44