The Host Arrayed

Propers: All Saints’ Sunday, AD 2023 A

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Christian walks in two worlds at once: a world of death, and a world of life; a world of time, and a world of eternity; a world of scarcity and struggle, and a world of superabundant grace. It’s a little bizarre, to be honest, this dual existence, at once both sinner and saint. In one world we are forever being crucified, while in another we’ve already resurrected.

Saint means holy, and holy means set apart. That’s what you are. You are sainted, set apart, for a purpose: to be Jesus for this generation. Not alone, mind you, but as Christians, as a community, as the Church. Our job is to be what He is, so that others can be what we are. The first Christian was Mary, one as she was with her Son. Now we are the Body of Christ, made one in His flesh and His blood, one in His name and His Spirit. Someday at the last God shall be all in all, at the wedding feast of the Lamb, at the end of this arduous age.

So no pressure or anything. The Kingdom is coming one way or another. We pray to be part of it, part of the salvation of this world, rather than a foe to be vanquished. For every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And all who call upon Him shall be saved. In the end, Jesus wins. Hallelujah.

Long ago and far away, Solomon built a Temple. He constructed it in Jerusalem, according to the plan of his father David, intending it to be the house of God on earth. And they took this rather literally. Temples in the Ancient Near East were understood as the domiciles, the dwelling places, of a people’s given god. It’s where all his stuff was. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, as we ourselves are rather literal when it comes to Jesus’ promises regarding bread and wine.

But the Temple at Jerusalem was unusual for a number of reasons. First of all, it was exclusive. The people of Israel, under the dynasty of David, were to have one God, one king, and thus one Temple—at least in theory. People worshipped in other places and other ways, often with another god, but such practices were periodically suppressed. Yahweh was a zealous God, committed to His people.

Second, there was no statue of Yahweh in the Temple. The God of Israel, of Abraham, Isaac, Melchizedek, and Moses, forbade graven images. There were all kinds of animals and monsters depicted in the Temple, from bulls to cherubim, but no image of God. There in the Holy of Holies, the Temple’s most sacred and forbidden space, where only one man could enter and he on only one day of the year, sat the Ark of the Covenant, covered by the wings of guardian beasts, yet Yahweh had no form, no image. He dwelt invisible.

And the third thing about this Temple, about this God, was the dawning realization that Yahweh was not simply some local desert deity, the patron of Abraham and Israel alone, but was in fact the Most High God, the God above all gods, who made the heavens and the earth. He was God of all peoples, God of all worlds, and the lesser gods were His children, His angels. And so He could not dwell in a house made with hands, nor even the vault of the heavens. He was everywhere, in everything, and infinitely beyond.

So the Temple in Jerusalem became a microcosm for Creation, a symbol and summary of the fathomless wonders of the One God, as well as gate between this world and the next. Before the Holy of Holies, deep within the heart of the Temple, stood a thick and massive curtain, representing the veil between this world and the divine. Incense burned in front of the curtain would waft up and over, representing prayers carried from here below into the presence of God above.

The anointed high priest, and likely at some point the king, were chrismed with holy oil, clothed in brightest white, and allowed to pass beyond the veil, into the heavenly realms. This was to be done on the Day of Atonement, the day of forgiveness of sins. There they stood as children of God, part of the divine court, robed in the same white, on par with the angels for a day, to intercede for their people, intercede for our world. The priest and the king went to heaven, if only but once in the year.

Alas, nothing in this world endures forever, and the day did come when the people of Israel lost all that they knew of their God. The Chaldeans of Babylon rolled in like the tide, and swept away the Temple, the king, the Promised Land and all. The Israelites were exiled, strangers in a strange land, there to wonder if God were still with them, if they were yet His people. How could they know with no Temple?

But a new breed of prophet arose in the Exile, who promised that God was still with them, in exile with them, that His true Temple dwelt above the heavens and His presence had gone with them into Babylon. All would be restored, the Prophets said, but not in the way it had been. A new Messiah would arise, a cosmic King from heaven, who would not be like the anointed of old, the kings and priests who failed.

Rather, this Messiah would inaugurate a heavenly Kingdom, a Kingdom of God, to rule as both High Priest and King forever. So now they sought the Christ, christos and messiah both meaning anointed. And they found Him, we believe, in Jesus, our High Priest and our King, our God upon this earth.

Keep all this in mind, this background, this history, when we read in the Scriptures—from John and Revelation, Hebrews and Esdras—the descriptions of the host arrayed in white. These are the saints of God, the ones now set apart, to serve the Messiah as part of His Kingdom. They wear white robes, as Christians do at Baptism, at the Eucharist, at our funerals. They are counted as children of God, petitioning His throne, members of His heavenly court. Their prayers rise up as incense from their bones beneath the altars.

That’s who we are. We are the host arrayed in white. We are those saints. Christ has made us what He is: children of God, priests and kings, mortals raised to heaven while we cry out from this earth. This is our reality, which Christians ought to know. Even as we live in this world of death and deception, we are called and empowered to be Jesus for our neighbor, to see Him within the needs of every single human being. How can I best get that through? You are gods in God, “little Christs” in Jesus.

That’s what it means to be a saint, to be set apart, to be made holy. It doesn’t mean that we’ve earned it. It doesn’t mean that we’re better or smarter or more moral than the rest. It just means that we have a job: a duty and a calling to call others to our Lord. We are the ones who are sent from the future; not from some distant century but from the eschatological horizon, the end and culmination of it all.

We know how this ends. We have seen it in Jesus Christ, in the Kingdom where He reigns. This world may fall to pieces, it may tie us up in knots, it may drown us in injustice and indifference and inhumanity unto man. But it will not win, not in the end, not at the last. Darkness shall give way to light, dishonesty to truth, wickedness to justice, and wrathfulness to grace. You can pierce us on the Cross but you can’t keep us in the tomb. Ain’t no grave dug that can hold me down.

So there you go, all you saints of the Lord. We have our marching orders. We are to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We are to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. We are to be fools for Christ and through it all to laugh in Satan’s teeth. Because this world will die. It is perishing even now. And we will rise—for we know that death yields to life, crucifixion to resurrection, and that there are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

Buckle up, you sainted sinners, ye host arrayed in white. Rally to the King. For there’s work to be done in Jesus’ Name—His saints are on the march!—and hell itself must break.

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

If you would like to contribute to St Peter’s ministry online, you may do so here, and we would thank God for your generosity.