Saints Triumphant
Daniel 12:1-3
Maybe you have heard the buzz these days in the Catholic Church about saints and sainthood. As I’m sure you’ve heard, the current pope isn’t doing too well health-wise, and before he passes away, one of the things he’s determined to do is to get this woman called Mother Teresa canonized as a saint. Mother Teresa was a nun who passed away in 1997, but not after winning the Nobel Prize for her many works of charity with the poor and downtrodden people of the world.
Do you know how a person gets to be a saint, at least in the Roman Catholic Church? It’s a three-step process. First of all, you are “venerated,” or honored for living a holy life. The second step of sainthood is called “beautification.” You are beautified after it has been proven that you performed a miracle. And the third and final step, “canonization,” that sometimes takes centuries, is when another miracle has been proven. You complete those three steps, and you are considered a full-fledged saint.
Today, we aren’t going to talk about church law procedures and miracles and whatnot. But we are going to talk about saints. Let’s study these three verses from Daniel 12 and read the Bible’s Three Steps To Sainthood. Saints Struggle. Saints Rise. Saints Educate Through Christ.
Part I
Daniel wrote 25 long centuries ago, but he wrote about the very days in which we 21st Century Christians are living. Daniel writes about these days, “There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then.” Did you notice what days will be like for saints of God? One word here in Daniel really sums it up: distress. Saints don’t live easy lives. They fight against enemies in the world, who want to rob them of their faith and then also their sainthood. I spent a couple of years on the campus of a public state university. And there, I saw part of this great distress that Daniel said would come. In class, saints are assaulted with anti-biblical ideas. Outside of class, saints are confronted with anti-Christian enticements. And this great distress that Daniel speaks of is not only in schools, but it’s in our workplaces, or neighborhoods, our get-togethers, our televisions and on the internet. It surrounds us so much that oftentimes we don’t consider just how much spiritual danger there is out there.
But we don’t have to look out there for things to struggle against. All you need to do is look right here, at your own heart and desires, and see that you do live in a distressing time. So often when we find ourselves in trouble, it’s because we are mostly responsible for that trouble in the first place. We can be our own worst enemies. Ever have times when you don’t feel like much of a saint? There’s a battle between good and evil in your heart, and too often the evil wins out. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that saints aren’t alone in their struggle. The first verse of our text reads, “at that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise.” There are two angels mentioned by name in the Bible: Gabriel, who appeared to Mary, and Michael, who is found here and a couple other places in the Bible. The point of this verse isn’t so much for us to focus on Michael and who he was. Instead, God wants his saints to take comfort, knowing that there are powerful angelic forces on our side. Soldiers outnumbered on the battlefield are given confidence to fight on because they know that huge numbers of reinforcements are on the way. Saints battle evil in the world and in their own hearts, knowing that God’s army just isn’t on its way, but it is fighting right now alongside the saints, against all that evil.
Daniel goes on, “At that time your people – everyone whose name is found written in the book – will be delivered.” Daniel comforts the struggling saints with the concept that their names appear on God’s guest list. He is having an eternal celebration in heaven, and God knows the name of every saint. He’s written down your name in the invitation slate. We aren’t just detached numbers to the Lord. We are treasured names.
Why? Why should God love you and me? When we talk about saints, those glorious ones who will inherit eternal life, are we really talking about people like us? Or are only those who travel to far away countries to help the poor called saints?
Saint comes from the Latin word Sanctus, which means holy. A saint is a holy one. When you think of saint, you probably think of Jolly old St. Nick, that nice guy whom we remember at Christmas. Some folks have in their cars a statuette of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers. Maybe you think of saints in the Bible: St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul. How does one get to be recognized as a saint? To be a saint, a person had to be very kind, very confident, a very strong believer. Saints were Super-Christians, right?
But what have we seen here in Daniel? The very opposite. Saints…struggle! Saints aren’t perfect. In fact, that’s what the Lord wants his saints to be: people who realize that they can’t do it all. Saints are people who realize that they don’t have all the answers. Saints are those who oftentimes look downright weak and sinful. Jesus told a story of a saint once. Actually there were two men in this story. One was a churchgoer. He did many good deeds. He helped a lot of people. He prayed all the time, even in public. He gave a ton of money to the church. But he wasn’t a saint. He was not a saint, because he was doing all those things for the wrong reason. He wanted to look good, and he did...in the eyes of men. But that doesn’t make you a saint. The other man in this story was an open sinner. He would be seen in the red-light district of town. He had probably wasted his money on trivial and downright sinful things. And he came to church, wouldn’t even look up, and just said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Jesus called that man justified, forgiven, in other words, a saint. The first step to sainthood is realizing you struggle with sin, and you need help with your sin.
Part II
Verse 2 tells us what happens to the saints on the last day, Judgment Day: “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.” Many look at death and think, “that’s it. Here ends a person’s existence.” The Bible has a different take on death. Yes, our bodies turn back to dust, but death is still explained as a sleep. Now who of us goes to sleep at night, worrying, “oh, I might not ever wake up!”? If you’re like me, most evenings you actually look forward to sleep, those hours where your body can rest and recharge its batteries and get ready for the next day. Now just as we don’t fear sleep, we need not fear death. Just as we wake up from sleep each morning, saints will wake up from death on the last day. Saints rise.
In fact, everyone rises. Daniel stresses the great number when he says, “multitudes who sleep…will awake.” In the Gospel for today, Jesus stresses the comprehensive nature of the resurrection when he says, “A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out.” So if all rise from the dead, are all saints? Daniel tells us that there is a difference.
For the saints, resurrection will be perfect and everlasting. Others will also arise, but to shame and everlasting contempt. Basically the Bible says of these people: they held God in contempt during their lives, and so God will hold them in contempt in the next life. They wanted little to do with God on earth, so God wants little to do with them in eternity. They rise from the dead, but they rise to begin their life in hell.
I guess it’s really important that we nail down what a saint is, because we all want to be on the good side when Judgment Day comes. We said before that saints are holy ones. And again, does that really describe us? Are you holy? Am I? Are we saints?
Let me ask you this: were the people we think of as saints holy? Were St. Peter, St. John, St. James, holy? Holy is a synonym of “perfect.” We all agree that the saints were good, kind, giving people, but they weren’t holy in the most basic sense of the word. They had bad days. They had sins that they fell into. The Bible makes that clear. So if they weren’t holy, why do we call them saints, holy ones?
The one-word answer is: Christ! He’s the only one that can really be called a saint. He was the only one in all human history who was really holy in every sense of the word. If we are saying that the second step to sainthood is being able to rise from the dead, well, Jesus did that!
Can we? Can we raise ourselves from death? This past week, we had a death in our family. Someone that we knew for over three years, our pet puffer fish, expired the other day. And there really isn’t much we can do, is there? We have a marine biologist here in our church, and even he couldn’t bring life to our dead fish. And if we can’t raise a silly little fish from the dead, what are the odds that we can raise a loved one, or ourselves, from the dust of death? We can’t. And that’s why saints need someone who can do that for them. Everyone rises from the dead. But what makes saints different is that they rise to eternal life and glory, by Jesus.
Part III
And the third step to sainthood is this: saints have wisdom to share. Saints teach. “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” About 200 years ago, the tomb of the great conqueror Charlemagne was opened. The sight the workmen saw was startling. Instead of being buried lying down, his body was in a sitting position, clothed in the most elaborate of kingly garments, with a scepter in his bony hand. On his knee lay the Holy Scriptures, with a cold, lifeless finger pointing to Mark 8:36: "what good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?"
I don’t know exactly what Charlemagne was thinking when he gave instructions to be buried in this strange way, but I’d like to believe that he wanted to make a statement about where his trust was placed. This king became a saint by Jesus through trust. Charlemagne could have trusted in his power or wealth or fame, but instead, he placed his eternal welfare into the hands of a being he had never even seen: Jesus. Jesus Christ, the one who was a saint, a holy one, and the one who gives sainthood to struggling sinners – free of charge!
I am looking at an entire congregation of saints this morning. And as I say that, you might be thinking, “does pastor really mean me? He doesn’t know what I did this past week, because if he did, he sure wouldn’t be calling me a saint!” But you see, big sins and little sins, great numbers of sins and small amounts of sins, ALL torpedo our sainthood. That’s why we sinners are so blessed to be called saints. Yes, we will be sinners until the day of our death. But we also are at the same time saints. Our sins have been washed by the blood of Christ, And sainthood is bestowed on all who trust that Jesus has forgiven them.
So what do we saints do now? Just sit around and wait to go to heaven? No! God wants others to know about sainthood. Charlemagne was a teacher, even in death. He showed us where his trust was in the last hours and minutes of his life. Daniel remarks that saints are teachers, “those who lead many to righteousness [will shine] like the stars forever and ever.”
I want you to think about how a person achieves stardom here on earth. It’s accomplished through some talent or skill that they possess that few others have. That is true of stardom in the NBA, in popular music, in business. Stars let their talents separate themselves from we “regular folk.” Daniel shows us what stardom in the next life means. Spiritual stars don’t have special, unattainable talents. Performing stunning miracles doesn’t make you a star in God’s book. Rather, saints shine like stars when they lead others to righteousness. When they tell others what makes them tick. When they instruct their young in the way of the Lord Jesus. THAT’S stardom in God’s eyes! Leading, Teaching. Saints Educate through Christ.
Conclusion
So the Lord’s three steps to sainthood are a bit different than is taught by some. Saints are not extraordinary people who are high up on an impossible-to-reach pedestal. Saints are ordinary people like us. Simple people who have a simple trust for the solution to our sins: Jesus. As the hymn-writer said, “Blessed are the saints of God. They are bought with Christ’s own blood. They are ransomed from the grave. Life eternal they shall have. With them numbered may we be, here, and in eternity!” Jesus has made you a saint, a holy one. Live like a saint! Die like a saint! Amen.
sdg
