Download the Bulletin from November 1, 2026
READINGS
First Reading: Revelation 7:9-17
9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!”
11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 singing,
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you are the one who knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 For this reason they are before the throne of God
and worship him day and night within his temple,
and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
16 They will hunger no more and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat,
17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Second Reading: 1 John 3:1-3
1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12
1 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he began to speak 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 will be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people 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 in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
SERMON—Pastor Pam Russell
Grace and peace to you from God our Mother and Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, last night we had quite a crowd on the breezeway out there. We had not one, but several, visits by the Grim Reaper; Devils, a Zombie, a Fallen Angel, Dr. Doom, Darth Vader; also, Luke Skywalker. It was awful! There were witches, and wizards! There were a couple of Supermen who were clinging to their mama’s pants legs, with all that ghoulishness going on around them. Cinderella looked a little overpowered, too. I was scared half to death!
But then I calmed down. Watched all that stuff. Started thinking to myself: “Hey, this looks and sounds a lot like the book of Revelation—stuff straight out of the Bible! There were a few white robes, some wearing crowns; there were beasts; and an angel. I didn’t see any Lamb, but there was a T-rex … It was all there. Characters, straight out of the Revelation to John on the church’s front porch!
That is what these days are all about: Halloween.
Celebrating Halloween, Queen Anne Lutheran Church, is a faithful thing to do. Halloween, All Saints and All Souls Day—or in Latin America, tomorrow is known as the Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos—and Christians come out en masse on these days to dance upon the graves; to shake our collective fists at Death’s macabre face and say, “You can howl at the moon if you want to, but weworship the Risen Son, and He has already put you in your place, among the tombstones and the darkness! So, you might scare us, but you will not defeat us!”
Let the little devils come; they remind us of who is in charge of life, and death. They help us see what John calls “God’s Apocalypse,”—that’s the original Greek word for this book of the Bible—in our Common English, “God’s Revelation, according to John.”
There is this line between life and death, you know, a thin line. We live most of our lives as if it isn’t really there until we’re confronted by it, through the death of a loved one, or a horrible accident, or violence, or war.
Roman Catholics and the Orthodox never quit praying to the departed saints, because in a very real sense, in Christ, these saints are always with us. And I think we Protestants have come around a bit, too. John helps us to see it. In his stunning apocalyptic vision, John blurs the line between ordinary daily life and “ever more.”
He draws the future of God into our present. He brings heaven to earth, and shows us how things really are in God’s world—not the way we’ve come to think they are.
This morning, we are going to name some people robed in white around the throne; the “good ghosts” of Queen Anne Lutheran Church. The good ghosts of your family and friends, and mine. We are surrounded, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, “We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.” Think of it: here we are, on this field of earth, and we are surrounded by a stadium of saints, cheering us on.
And they are all around us. But their cheers are not simply for us to be good little ghosts and witches, and not to eat too much candy, and just be sure and say, “thank you.” No, these saints, these dearly-departed ones, are urging us to run the race of faith, as those who understand the stakes. They are the ones who have passed through the great ordeal, the trials and tribulations of living a Christ-centered life that costs something. They are the ones who’ve been transformed by sharing in the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They are the faithful saints, saying to us, “Listen, and take to heart the Way of Jesus, who says, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.’”
Right here at the very beginning of Jesus’s ministry, he already has an apocalyptic vision, a vision of the times to come! He sees what lies ahead, for those who trust in God and follow him on the road of service in love.
“Blessed are you when people revile you, and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice, and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For in the same way, they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
John, writing his Apocalypse, perhaps a hundred years or so after Jesus, he also extends to those who read his letter the hope of glory. But even more, he was offering hope for the here and now. John was writing from the island of Patmos. I’m told it was a rocky and desolated island, the Roman Empire’s version of something we know about: a prison for the deported.
Yet John, in prison, writes a letter of hope to the marginalized, the impoverished, the weak, the deserving communities that Rome, the Halloween-monster of the world, was gobbling up. And John is saying, in this fantastic vision of a new earth and heaven, with all the tribes on the face of the earth gathered around the throne, John is saying, “Take heart. Be of good courage. That wild thing, Death, that thing that is running around on your breezeways, and slipping under your bed at night, and hanging out in your hospitals, tormenting your cities, wrecking this good earth—that thing, Death— Jesus has already put a stake through his heart. And we call that stake the Cross. All that blood has been made pure as the driven snow.
The Saints remind us that we live on the other side of Death. The theologian Dorothy Zola put it, “Christians are those whose death is already behind them.”
We are free to live in the victory scene of Revelation, chapter 7, because death cannot touch us, not really. Oh, it rears its ugly head all the time: cancer, Alzheimer’s, domestic violence, hunger in this very wealthy city, and in all parts of the globe, the insanity of war. I’m not saying death has given up. I’m just saying that John is saying that Jesus Christ is saying: the last enemy to be destroyed is Death, and Death is already down for the count. We can live free from the gripping fear of all that ghastliness, because we know the real story.
So as we worship and live today, we can pray to God “for all the saints;” those living and dead, from this earthly life—that their witness to Christ might embolden our witness, to be the true Church in these troubled times: a Church that draws near to the poor; sends quilts to those who are in need of comfort; comforts those who are unemployed; helps those who are underemployed; the homeless, the imprisoned, the deported—and says, “Take, eat. This is my body, full of Good News; this cup, full to overflowing.”
And we can ask those Saints to labor on for us. O, that all the Saints we love, and those we have heard about, and seen marching in protest marches, facing ICE agents on the streets, standing between children and drones in war-blasted cities of the world;
O, that all the Saints would labor on for us, until we hunger no more, and thirst no more, and the sun will not strike us, nor any scorching heat.
Pray like that, my brothers and sisters, and know that your prayers are being heard by the Lamb, who is at the center of the throne, who will be your shepherd, who will wipe every tear from your eye.
Pray, pray like that, for all the saints.
Amen.