Hymns trigger powerful emotions in me. “O Church, Arise,” a contemporary hymn written by Keith and Kristyn Getty, is one of those reach-into-my-heart songs. When I sing the final stanza, “As saints of old still line the way, recounting triumphs of the day,” I am transported to the memory of believers gone before us. Saints are not men who play for a professional football team in New Orleans or merely a classification of super-Christians the church has “canonized.” Paul’s New Testament letters are addressed to saints, an equivalent term for believers. Saints are identified not so much for what they do for God, but what God in Christ has done for them. We are saints on account of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us, not for any meritorious obedience on our side.
Today is called All Saints Day in the Christian church. The fourth century church set aside a day to honor martyrs and believers persecuted for their faith. By the eighth century, the day was expanded to include believers who had “fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4.7). Given all the Halloween hype yesterday on skeletons and tombstones, All Saints Day offers a refreshing contrast to honor believers who have gone before us. While All Saints Day is most often associated with Catholics, Protestants observe it also. Methodist John Wesley called it in his 1767 journal, “A festival I truly love.” He drew strength from meditating on the witness of faithful Christians, past and present.
Anglican bishop William How wrote the hymn, “For All the Saints” in 1864 in observance of All Saints Day. When the song first appeared in English hymnals, its heading was “A Cloud of Witnesses,” an obvious reference to Hebrews 12.1. While the hymn originally had eleven stanzas (one for apostles, evangelists, martyrs, etc.), four verses follow here to draw us into thanksgiving for the “communion of the saints.”