Today's Daily Lesson comes from Hebrews chapter 11 verses 32 through 40:
32 And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— 33who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. 36Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— 38of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
39 Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40since God had provided something better so that they would not, without us, be made perfect.
They will not, without us.
Today is All Saints Day. It is a day for remembering the lives of the saints, and in more recent years also remembering the lives of all the faithful, now departed.
We give thanks for these lives and the lessons we learn from them.
And it is what we have learned from them that is important to us. For All Saints is not only a day for remembering the dead, but even more for vowing ourselves to continue on in the mantle of their work.
The Lesson says, they will not, without us, be made perfect. So the end is not yet. We still have a part to play. The day is our struggle now. The saints trust us with the present and the future. They are in our hands now.
The magisterial All Saints hymn "For All The Saints" says:
"Oh, bless’d communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine,
yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.
Alleluia, alleluia!"
We may feel feeble in our struggle. But surely the saints did also. Yet the kept the faith, fought the good fight, finished the race.
Let us keep to our course also. And may the great cloud of witnesses cheer, guide, and continue to inspire us.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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