God With Us
All Saints’ Sunday – November 2, 2025
Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18
Psalm 149
Ephesians 1:11-23
Luke 6:20-31
Our psalm for today is the second-to-last psalm in the book of Psalms. As you may remember the last five psalms in the book are called the “Hallelujah” psalms. That is because each psalm begins and ends with Hallelujah. This Hebrew word means “Praise the Lord”. In fact in some of the places where Hallelujah appears in the Old Testament it is written as “Praise the Lord.” Some translators write it that way in this psalm. While it is often difficult to pin point when a psalm was written this one was most likely written during the time when Israel was under the rule of a decedents of one of Alexander the Great’s generals. This was a time of great struggle of the Hebrew people since the Greek rulers dictated to them how they were to worship. Those who chose to worship differently were persecuted. You can hear the tension between the Israelites and the Greeks in this psalm. The psalm begins with a description of praising God with harp and drum, with song and dance. It is a call to be allowed the right to worship God in their own way. The psalm ends with the call to take up arms and free themselves from the gentile rulers and place them in chains. As in most psalms the call to the destruction of enemies is more or a venting of frustration than an actual call to arms. In this way it was a psalm to offer comfort to a people whose destiny was wrapped up in conflict between nations with greater power and resources than they.
Our reading from Daniel is the same. Daniel was written in the last two centuries before Jesus. It is apocalyptic literature. That is literature written in order to comfort a people who were living through dangerous, unsettling times. The author wrote as if he was writing many centuries earlier than he was using his knowledge of Israel's history pretending to predict those events. This was to give comfort to the people by predicting that their time of great persecution would also end. More importantly, our psalm and Daniel are reminders that, no matter what happens, God will always be present.
There is a third theme that is in our psalm today – God’s preference for the poor. The psalmist tells us that God gives the victory to the poor. We also see that preference in Luke today. Jesus’ beatitudes is about the poor, hungry, and those who weep – the people whom the world ignores and mistreats. Which is why Jesus speaks against the rich, those with plenty to eat, and those who fill their lives with frivolity since it is they who mistreat and take advantage of the poor. When you put all these texts together you will see what Paul is telling us in his letter to the Ephesians. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints. That is what today is all about. As we celebrate all the saints that have enriched our lives we are reminded that we shall, one day, join them and all the saints around the throne of God. Until that day let us all live in the hope and faith that Jesus has given us through his life, death, and resurrection. Faith that the world does not, as yet know. Faith that gives us the strength to persevere when the world seems against us. Faith that knows the love and peace of God that surpasses all understanding.