All Saints’ Day 2018

On All Saints Day, we celebrate the victory won for all the faithful dead, but we grieve for our beloved dead as well, knowing that God honors our tears. We bring our grief to the table and find there a foretaste of Isaiah’s feast to come.

All Saints’ Day celebration has a long history in the worship life of the Christian Church. It began as a commemoration of the martyrs who had died for the faith, and it has since become a day when we honor and remember those who, in death, have joined the Church Triumphant, as well as the faithful saints of the present who serve Jesus Christ. Martin Luther held that all Christians are simultaneously sinner and saint–a sinner because of our rebellious nature, but a saint because of salvation in Jesus.¹

Liturgical Art Experience

In addition to reading the names of the beloved Good Shepherd saints who have gone before us during worship, two weeks before All Saints Sunday (November 4), everyone is invited to write the names of all the saints in our lives on ribbons (there will be a table in each campus lobby). Those ribbons will be used to create liturgical art displays in worship on All Saints Sunday; another way to remember the saints, our loved ones, who have gone before us.

^{1 All Saints’ Background Credit: Northwest Synod of Wisconsin Resource Center}