Exegesis of Sunday of All Saints Vespers Parables
Isaiah 43:9‑14, Wisdom 3:1‑9, Wisdom 5:15 - 6:3
1st Sunday after Pentecost

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Tonight, brothers and sisters, we celebrate all the saints.  It is appropriate to celebrate all saints after Pentecost because, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, holiness is possible – without Pentecost, there would be no saints!.  And because it is a very festive day, we have the parables for Vespers, that is, three selections generally from the Old Testament which are meant to elucidate the meaning of the feast.

We are celebrating sanctity.  We are celebrating holiness.  We are celebrating what can happen to us.  And there is proof that it can happen to us because it has happened to countless millions of others, some of whom we know by name and many of whom we do not know by name.  

So the parables will discuss some aspect of sanctity.  This is a good principle to follow in Scriptural exegesis.  Where does the church read the particular passage that you are interested in?  Where it is read, during what time of year or in what combination of readings or for what feast it is read for, really tell you a lot about the meaning of the text.  And it is no different here.  

The first reading is from Isaiah and the Lord is saying:  "All nations shall be gathered together and princes shall be gathered out of them.  Who will declare these things among them?  Or who will declare to you things from the beginning?"  

And He answers the question:  The saints.  He says:  "Let them bring forth their witnesses and be justified, and let them hear and declare the truth.  Be ye My witnesses, and I too am a witness, sayeth the Lord God, and My servant whom I have chosen, that ye may know and believe Me and understand that I am."

Of course he is talking about the servant Jesus Christ the Man, Who, being God before all things, became Man in time and a servant and showed us the way of sanctity, the way of holiness.  

And we, brothers and sisters, should be witnesses.  We are to show that Christianity is true by the way we live and our sanctity, and the holiness that the Lord gives to us in reward for our effort.  He does not give to us without any conditions.  The condition of the bestowal of sanctity is to desire it and to want to follow the way of sanctity.  And then God will give what is far beyond our capabilities.  So we are His witnesses.  This is one aspect of sanctity, of being His saint.  

Now, of course, saint just means holy,  “Holy one”.  We are called to be saints.  All of us are called to perfection.

The next reading is from the Wisdom of Solomon, and it is in great detail about some of the travails of the life of sanctity.  One might think it's only about martyrs, but this is not the case.  It's about the martyric life which is the life of sanctity.  Our Lord had a martyric life before He was crucified.  His whole life was a martyrdom, a willing martyrdom.

So it says:  "The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and there shall no torment touch them.  In the sight of the unwise they seem to die, and their departure is taken from misery and their going forth from us to be utter destruction, but they are in peace."

This peace which passes all understanding is only understood by those that are holy.  We understand perhaps a little bit about it and that's why we struggle.  But we understand very little, and that is why we sin.  Those who understand the profound peace that God can give do not sin.  This is not describing just martyrs.  It is describing the sanctified way of life.  

The world sees our way of life as restrictive or neurotic or mentally ill or even hateful.  The world sees in our life all kinds of things that are not there.  We know that our life is the way of truth, the only way of peace, and it is also a way of sacrifice.  

The Wisdom of Solomon goes on to say:  "For though they were punished in the sight of men, yet is their hope full of immortality.  And having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded, for God proved them and found them worthy for Himself."  

It is interesting how the Scripture says things, "a little chastised."  Actually, we are a lot chastised.  The Christian must feel chastisement from within about his sins.  And it should be a serious and cutting chastisement.  So although the Scripture says "a little" and Saint Peter says something akin to it in his epistle, "for a little time we would be tempted."  Actually, during the times of temptations it doesn't feel like a little bit at all.  It feels like a lot.  But it is really a little in the scheme of things because God is to give us eternal life, peace with Him, holiness, perfection.  Compared to that, our chastisement is a little.  Much like ‑‑ and the Lord has given this idea in the Scriptures:  A woman who is at her time of travail feels great pain and sometimes great agony, sometimes for a long period of time.  And yet when the child is born, all the agony is forgotten.  It was really only a little bit of agony in comparison to the joy to bring a child into the world.  

And so it is with us.  Our suffering is really just a little bit.  Always put it in perspective.  Your struggling against your sins and sometimes your being chastised, sometimes being treated unfairly, all the other things that happen in the world, it's just a little bit compared to the glory of God.  

And then in the reading from the Wisdom of Solomon again, the last reading says that "The righteous shall live forever and the reward is in the Lord, and the care of them is with the Most High.  Therefore, they shall receive the Kingdom of majesty and the crown of comeliness from the Lord's hand, for with His right hand shall He cover them and with His arm shall He protect them."  

And then Solomon goes on to describe words, with words that Saint Paul knew, because in his epistle when he speaks about these metaphors, it's very clear that they're like the Wisdom of Solomon.  "He shall take to them his jealousy for complete armor."  Jealousy means we will not endure anything except the holiness of God.  God is a jealous God, and so we should be jealous for Him.  We should only want to do what is right, what is good, what is holy.  That is jealousy.  

"And then he shall put on righteousness as a breastplate and true judgment instead of a helmet.  He shall take on holiness for an invincible shield."  All these things are about a moral way of life.  To know God, we must become like Him.  And so we have it.  True righteousness is necessary in order to know He Who is truly righteous, Who gives all righteousness to men.

So let us rejoice that there are saints.  Rejoice that the Holy Spirit can fill a man so much that he can become completely holy, completely perfected, and we are called to this perfection.  We have seen just a little bit in these readings.  We are called to be witnesses.  We are called to be emissaries.  We have a responsibility to bear the name of Christ and to be worthy of it.  

Also, the world does not understand us.  Let's not expect the world to understand us.  It will understand us less and less as the days go on.  It is clear that there is a fundamental shift in the mind of man compared to only a few decades ago.  And we are living in the midst of an age of depravity when depravity is being accepted and the world does not understand the way we live.  

And let us also know that, to become sanctified and holy, we must live in a sanctified and holy way.  There is no substitute for the following of the commandments and for the struggling to know the will of God and to do it.  Our faith is not a faith of knowing things.  It is a faith of doing things because we know.

So may God preserve us and help us all to become saints.  This is the purpose of your life.  We are not singing about people that are strangers to us.  We're singing about people that should be like us or, should I say it, we should become like them because they are like Christ.  

The blessing of the Lord be upon you through His grace and love for mankind, always now and ever and unto the ages of ages!  Amen.