All You Saints Pay Attention

I'm thinking about "saints" today. It is only a few days before "All Saints Day", a little known and not well celebrated event in the church today. Most celebrations like this are owned by the Catholics. They lay claim to the historic church events that fill their religious calendar every year. This celebration is still on the calendar, but it is in reality "All Saints lite" type celebration.
Why? Simply put the embarrassing incident of Luther's using this day as the time to post his propositions - debatable ones at that - 95 Thesis. He simply wanted to put the issue of Indulgences and whether or not they are part of the salvation God promised through the church. Well, little did he know the firestorm he would start.
Now, 488 years later we don't tend to celebrate this day much...perhaps the Lutherans do.
Evangelicals and Charismatics have an abysmal record for celebrating anything on the church calendar. Too bad.
There is much to say about "All Saints Day" and even if Luther had not made the day infamous, it would still be worth our time to reflect on the "great cloud of witnesses" that have gone before us.
As a student and teacher of Church History there are many Saints to be awed by...
The Early ones: Iraeneus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, The Cappadocian Fathers, Augustine to name a few.
The Middle Ones: Patrick, Columba, Anselm, Francis, Benedict, Abelard, Aquinas, Hus, Wyclif, to name a few more.
The Reformers: Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Count Zinzendorf, Melancthon, Bullinger, Knox, Cramner, Spener, to name a few more.
The Modern Ones: Bunyan, Edwards, Wesley(s), Finney, Wilberforce, Moody, Barth, Bonhoeffer, M L King and my namesake, Jim Eliot.

What they have taught me is that faith is stubborn perseverance -- all along trusting in God regardless of the circumstances and winds of compromise and comfortability that grow.
What they teach me is that "sainthood" is theologically true of every believer in Jesus Christ, but rarely expressed with greatness. NOW IF THE CHURCH I LOVE AND PARTICIPATE IN COULD ONLY LIVE LIKE IT BELIEVED ITS SAINTHOOD.
Well, anyway, Happy "All Saints Day"... Thank You Martin for your courage and love for Christ that moved you to risk it all.