A young lad attended a church and was quite taken by the beautiful stained-glass windows. The art of the stained glass depicted Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, Saint Luke, Saint John, and Saint Paul. One day he was asked, “What is a saint?”
How might you answer that question—“What is a saint?”
A saint is a term for a holy person. People often picture a saint as someone who has lived an exceptionally good and faithful Christian life. Since the early centuries, men and women who lived what were deemed to be exemplary lives and showing “heroic virtue” by dying for their faith were officially numbered among the saints by the church.
Throughout the ages many men and women have showed heroic virtue by living out their faith, even to the point of death, and have been an inspiration for others. Many have done astonishing work in the Lord’s name. But that’s not how the bible defines a holy person. In Exodus 19 God declared to Moses on Mount Sinai: “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’” (Exodus 19:3-6).
God had saved a people for himself, to be set apart for his exclusive use among all the nations of the earth. This was all God’s promise and doing. They hadn’t done anything particularly special. They hadn’t lived an exemplary life of faith. They argued and quarrelled against Moses and God in the desert. They disobeyed God’s commands. They turned aside from him, worshipped cheap, lifeless imitations, like a golden calf. They craved the things of the flesh and walked by their own wisdom rather than listening to the wisdom of God. They were, in reality, anything but holy people.
But they would have to be holy, if they were to meet with the holy God—the holy One of Israel. So in his grace God gave them the sacrificial system. Each morning and evening they were to sacrifice a lamb as a burnt offering. It wasn’t as though the people became holy because they were being obedient to God in offering these sacrifices, achieving their own holiness, setting themselves apart for God’s service by cleansing themselves of their own sin. For who can do that? Only God is holy, and the only source of holiness.
But because of the sacrificed lamb, God promised that he would be there, and the place would be consecrated—be set apart and made holy—by his presence. So God’s holiness, rather than consuming the people, covered the people. Whereas God drove Adam and Eve from the Garden in the beginning so that they would not be consumed and meet their end by his holy presence, the sacrifice at the entrance to the tent of meeting was the way the holy God could meet his people and speak with them, to purify them with his own holiness and set them apart for his exclusive purpose. God gave his people his purity laws so that they could continue to be in his presence and receive his holiness.
Among all the people of the world, they were the nation God had gathered for himself—a holy nation that did not achieve their own holiness but were made holy by receiving God’s holiness. This is the language and imagery that Peter uses as he addresses God’s New Testament people: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.’
In the Old Testament only the High Priest was permitted to go into the Holy of Holies, where God dwelt, on one day of the year—the Day of Atonement. On that day the High Priest would make payment for the sin of Israel by sprinkling blood over the Ark of the Covenant, where the Ten Commandments were kept.
Jesus is now our Great High Priest. He has gone into the Most Holy Place—he has ascended into heaven to open the way to heaven for us. The blood he sprinkled to do this was not the blood of a Lamb, but his own holy and precious blood, for he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And so Jesus is both our Great High Priest but also the once-for-all perfect payment for sin. We can then “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”(Hebrews 4:16).
There are two traps we can fall into regarding holiness:
The first is we are so aware of our sinful nature that we disbelieve we could ever be one of God’s saints. We think if we could just live as better Christians, measuring up to the example of others, we could make ourselves pure and pleasing in God’s sight. We still live in the sinful flesh—and as Paul wrote in Galatians 5, the acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like (Galatians 5:19-20). If you have a pen with you, make a note to look up 1 Corinthians 6 when you get home. Read 1 Corinthians 6 and the context to which Paul spoke. Paul warned them that those who unrepentantly live like this will inherit the kingdom of God. He said: “That is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:11). They had been made holy—washed and sanctified—which is why despite their sin Paul addressed them as “the saints at Corinth” in his letter. Luther explained that we are simultaneously sinners and saints.
The second is that, since we are saved by grace, holiness doesn’t matter. That’s what the church at Rome thought—“should we continue in sin so that grace will abound?” (Romans 6:1). “By no means!” Paul answers—because we have been joined to Jesus and his holiness in baptism.
Both of these positions—that we could never be holy saints, or that we don’t ever need to live holy lives—denies the washing and renewing work of the Holy Spirit through Jesus as Jesus comes to us in word and sacrament. God commands us as he did his people of old: “Be holy, because I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). Jesus is the Holy One, as we sang again this morning in the liturgy: “You alone are holy, you alone are Lord, you alone O Christ, with the Holy Spirit, are most high in the glory of God the Father.” And so we confessed this morning: “Do you intend to strive daily to lead a holy life, even as Christ has made you holy?”
Christ has made you holy. You are a saint in God’s holy nation. Not because of anything you have done, but because of what Christ has done, and what he continues to do as he meets you. God has set us apart to live holy lives in obedience and faithfulness to him and his word.
For we do not have a range of purity laws to adhere to like in the book of Leviticus. We have Jesus our Great High Priest, the Holy One, who is both priest and sacrifice. It is his sprinkled blood that makes us clean, by washing away all our sins. It is this holiness Jesus brings to us in Holy Baptism, where we are joined to him as the people of God, the Communion of saints; God’s holy nation he has chosen for himself. It is his sprinkled blood that he gives us in Holy Communion, purifying us from the inside out. It is through these means and his proclaimed word that the Holy Spirit comes to us and continues to make us holy through faith in Christ.
When Peter wrote his letters to the early Church, from where our theme verse comes, midway through the first Century, God’s people were not literally a nation, like God’s Old Testament people Israel. They were persecuted by the Roman Emperor, Nero. Peter wrote to “God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood” (1 Peter 1:1-2).
They were scattered throughout the empire but made a holy nation by the work of the Holy Spirit to trust in Jesus and live in obedience to him. They suffered grief in all kinds of trials, yet they greatly rejoiced because they knew that their persecution for bearing Jesus’ name was a good sign—it meant they were God’s chosen people, and that they had been blessed. People saw the hope they had despite their troubles. The more that God’s saints were persecuted, and the further that they were scattered, meant the further that the gospel of Jesus spread. People saw their holy lives—that they were different and set apart for life and service with God. They saw their faith, their hope, their conviction, their confidence in placing their trust in Jesus’ word and following him in the world.
Remember the story at the beginning of this sermon, about a young lad who attended a church and was quite taken by the saints portrayed in the beautiful stained-glass windows. He was asked, “What is a saint?”
Looking at the windows, with the sunlight shining through the figures in the glass, the boy answered: “A saint is a person whom the light shines through.”[1]
That’s a pretty good answer. That’s a good way of thinking about yourself, and this congregation as a part of the holy communion of saints as we live and work and serve in a dark world. God has called you and set you apart, and justified and washed you so that people can see the light of Jesus shining through you.
May others see the light of the Son through us. May we not capitulate to the world, but hold fast to the word, so that we are not tossed to and fro by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming (Ephesians 4:14) but stand firm on God’s word and simply say his word is his word, the same yesterday, today and forever—the holy word of a holy God, who comes to us and makes us holy in truth.
Because, saints at St Paul’s: you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Amen.
[1] Michael P. Green, ed., Illustrations for Biblical Preaching: Over 1500 Sermon Illustrations Arranged by Topic and Indexed Exhaustively, Revised edition of: The expositor’s illustration file. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989).
