"To be a beggar before God is to be blessed with the kingdom of heaven" — All Saints' Day 2025

02. November 2025

All Saints Day (observed)

Matthew 5:1-12

And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (vv 1–3).

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

All Saints’ Day asks a simple question: what makes a person a saint? What do they all have in common—the martyrs, the faithful, the forgotten, that great multitude standing before the throne and before the Lamb? And if that’s who they are—how in the world could we ever belong among them?

Here’s the truth: to be a saint is to be a beggar before God. And to be a beggar before God is to be blessed with the kingdom of heaven. That’s it. That’s the heart of it. Not perfection. Not prestige. Not moral achievement. Begging.

We usually don’t think of saints as beggars. We picture halos and heroic deeds—icons shining in gold leaf. We think of martyrs, reformers, and missionaries. St. John the Baptist with his head on a platter, St. Stephen martyred by stoning, St. Simon sawn in two, Sts. Perpetua and Felicity fed to the lions, St. Lawrence roasted like a pig on a spit, or Christians in Nigeria killed by Islamist jihad. The martyrs are indeed worth remembering.   

Perhaps we recall great Christians of the past known for their bold and faithful teaching, like St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, Martin Luther, or C.F.W. Walther. It’s helpful for us to know who they are and what they taught.

We might also remember Christians whose lives were marked by virtue and sacrifice in service to others. For example, I think of Corrie Ten Boom, a Christian in the Netherlands who helped save the lives of Jews during the Holocaust, survived a concentration camp, and later forgave her captors. Or Mother Teresa, who dedicated her life to caring for the poor and the lowest castes in India. Or William Wilberforce in England, whose Christian faith motivated him to work toward ending slavery there. Such acts of love are worth emulating.

And yes, they are saints. But not because they glowed, or bled, or changed history. They are saints because they knew they had nothing to offer God except their need. And God met that need with mercy. They were not mere examples of strength but trophies of grace. They were sinners whom Christ made holy—people who were poor in spirit, yet rich in His promises.

John’s vision in Revelation isn’t a “Who’s Who of Holiness.” It’s a crowd no one can number. People whose names history forgot, but heaven remembers. Men and women who plowed fields, raised children, buried friends, struggled against sin, prayed through tears, and died holding on to Christ. They all learned what we must learn: sainthood begins when boasting and self-love die.

Ask any saint, “What makes you holy?” They’d shrug and say, “Me? I’m just a beggar. But Christ had mercy on me.” That’s the song you’ll hear in heaven. That’s the confession sung in every language, on every continent, across every century. The saints all sing the same tune: Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb who sits upon the throne.

We say we want to be saints, but who wants to be a beggar? Who wants to admit their desperate need? We’d rather earn, deserve, and achieve. We want to stand tall before God, not fall on our knees. But the Church isn’t a museum of the strong. It’s a shelter for beggars. Always has been.

The first Christians weren’t the powerful—they were the powerless. A poor maiden named Mary. A widow from Nain. A blind beggar shouting, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” A Canaanite woman who was content with crumbs. Tax collectors, lepers, fishermen, drunks, and children. Jesus went to the gutters and the graves and called beggars to Himself. The Kingdom of God began with empty hands reaching out.

And there’s a kind of honesty to that, isn’t there? The beggar doesn’t pretend. Some beggars still try to bargain—“I’ll pay it back, I’ll make it right, I’ll try harder.” But that’s not faith; that’s a contract. A saint is the beggar who stops pretending—who says, “I’ve got nothing. I can’t fix it. I can’t earn it. I’m unworthy—but I need You, Lord.” That’s the truth about us. That’s who we are.

Martin Luther’s last written words said it best: Hoc est verum. Wir sind alle Bettler. “We are beggars. This is true.” That wasn’t despair. That was faith stripped down to the bones. Faith that clings to the only One who can save. Faith that knows, in the end, everything depends on grace alone.

To be a saint is to be a beggar before God. But to be a beggar before God is to be blessed with the kingdom of heaven. Because God fills what is empty. He lifts what has fallen. He gives what we could never buy.“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus says, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” He doesn’t say, “will be.” He says, “is.” Right now. This kingdom already belongs to those who know they’ve got nothing.

The Beatitudes are not a ladder to climb but a description of what life looks like under Christ’s grace. The poor in spirit. Those who mourn. The meek. The merciful. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. These aren’t the world’s success stories—they’re Christ’s.

Each “blessed” is a snapshot of Jesus Himself, and of all who are found in Him. He is the truly poor in spirit, the One who mourns over sin, the meek King who rides on a donkey, the merciful who forgives His enemies, the pure in heart who sees God, the peacemaker who makes peace by His blood, the persecuted whose cross becomes our salvation.

That’s what the saints are: people conformed to Jesus. Not by imitation, but by union. Not by effort, but by blessed exchange. The Beatitudes are the biography of Christ—and by Baptism, they become ours, too. The saints are not those who have achieved heaven, but those whom heaven has already claimed.

Every saint’s life is hidden with Christ in God, and that life becomes visible in mercy, forgiveness, patience, and hope. Their lives point away from themselves and toward the One who called them blessed. This is why the Church celebrates them—not to idolize human virtue but to magnify divine gift. Their stories are not about what they accomplished, but about what Christ accomplished in them. The same Christ who comes to you here and now—speaking, forgiving, feeding, sealing you with His name. He joins you in that same communion of saints every time you come to the altar.

When you kneel at the rail, you don’t come alone. The table stretches beyond the visible world. It extends across centuries and continents and cemeteries. Those who have died in the faith are not absent—they are present in Him who fills all things. The saints in glory and the saints on earth share one feast, one Christ, one song.

You cannot see them, but they are there—singing with you, “Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabaoth.” This is the fellowship of the blessed. This is the communion of beggars redeemed by grace.

“Wide open stand the gates adorned with pearl, While round God’s golden throne The choirs of saints in endless circles curl, And joyous praise the Son! They watch Him now descending To visit waiting earth. The Lord of Life unending Brings dying hope new birth!” (LSB 639:1)

The altar is heaven’s border crossing. Here, the blood of Christ bridges the gap between the Church militant and the Church triumphant. Here heaven touches earth. Here, the same Lamb who was slain for them feeds you with His body and blood, forgiving your sins and sealing your place among them.

Jesus loves beggars because He became one. Though He was rich, He became poor for your sake, so that through His poverty you might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9) He traded heaven’s glory for a cross. He traded perfection for our sin. He became the beggar’s substitute. And now, everything He has is yours.

That’s what makes a saint: not your glory, but His. Not your record, but His blood. Not your hands full of works, but your hands empty and open to receive. That’s what John saw in his Revelation vision—beggars made beautiful. Robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb. No longer hungry or thirsty or sorrowful, but singing and tears of joy. Not because they were great, but because their Jesus is.

And that vision isn’t only about the end. It’s already breaking in. The same Spirit who made them holy is sanctifying you now. The same Word that called them from darkness calls you from despair. The same grace that sustained them in suffering strengthens you in yours. Every act of mercy, every word of forgiveness, every faithful prayer whispered in weakness—it all echoes their same faith. You are part of their number. You are their younger siblings in the household of God.

So yes, here and now, we live as beggars—poor in spirit, needy, repentant, clinging to grace. But there—there we will live as sons and daughters. Here we struggle and mourn. There we will rejoice and rest. Here we walk by faith. There we will see our Savior face to face. Here, our hands are empty. There they will overflow with joy.

Dear friends, what are saints? Blessed beggars all. Beggars whom Jesus calls His own. Beggars who inherit the kingdom of heaven. And when we die in faith—when we fall as beggars—we will rise as sons. Because all along, our hope was never in what we could give, but in what He already gave. And Father has given you everything in His Son—sins forgiven, life renewed, hope assured.

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin