The church tells time by colours and just as the clocks went back last week with the ending of British Summertime, the seasons of the Church year have also changed – from the green and growing season of Ordinary time, and of Creationtide in September up to Harvest – to the Kingdom Season, which is red, to today – All Saints Sunday – which is gold.

Its hard to keep up! Its all change! And actually, it was only a few Sunday’s ago – at St Luke’s Patronal when we were in red then too!

Red then for the saints who gave their lives for their faith, and red for the Kingdom Season when we think about the time when God’s Kingdom will come among us, on earth as it is in heaven, as we pray every day.

Red is the colour of passion, we colour hearts red and think of love, ‘my love is like a red red rose….’ as Robbie Burns describes it.

Red the colour too of flame and of blood.

The passion of Christ and the blood of sacrifice.

All these themes we will see in the Kingdom Season, when we remember the blood shed and the lives lost in wars past and when our hearts break for the current suffering in conflicts in Gaza and Israel, in Ukraine and Russia.

But today we celebrate in gold, the saints who have come through such times of trial and are now in the glory of heaven – and it seems, from the vision in the reading from Revelation, that this isn’t a limited number of special religious experts who’ve made it – but a great multitude, too many to count! And of every kind of person, from every background, and every nation.

What it seems they share, is that they have all suffered for their faith – but they have kept the faith despite this.

They have had their sights set on what is to come – the Kingdom of God.

Saints then are those who live in this world, with one foot not in the grave, as we sometimes say, but in the Kingdom of heaven.

Living in both this way is an art – its being able to see as if it were, a spark of heaven even in the murk of earth – living our earthly lives fully yet in full consciousness that all around us, just out of the corner of our eye, almost breaking through at any moment, is God’s beauty and glory.

Its there in the first letter of John, put more simply – Beloved we are God’s children now.

Therefore the world doesn’t know us – we are no longer creatures of flesh and blood alone – but heavenly beings already, yearning towards our heavenly home.

Its there in the Beatitudes – poor and yet already possessing everything, mourning and yet comforted, meek and yet inheriting the earth, hungry and thirsty and yet filled. Contradictory statements it seems but actually cause and effect.

When we are able to set aside the things of the earth, we can truly recognise the blessings of heaven that are already ours, let alone what will be – so much more lies before us.

The saints around us in our churches glow – with colour, often red for passion and love, often gold for the glory with which they are crowned.

On this All Saints Sunday – God’s blessing to us might be that we would begin to experience this glory breaking through. So that the darkness and mess of the world would not stop us believing, but that our belief would bring light to enlighten us and through us to bring light and hope to others.

Just imagine how things might change in the way we treat one another if we could really walk in this light, even through the darkest night? In a world where people walk in darkness – let us turn our faces to the light – as the hymn goes.

When the saints of old were facing persecution and death, they still sang praises to God and were so full of joy that sometimes those who were their executioners were so struck by this that they themselves became believers.

A wonderful poem by a medieval Persian poet called Hafiz, possibly written not long before St John’s was built, explores what it is to be a saint. How is their experience different to ours, he asks?

He speaks of how a saint is continually ‘tripping over joy and busting out in laughter and saying ‘I surrender’ because they recognise that God is so awesome and wonderful and so they are living in the light of heaven already.

Rejoice and be glad, says Jesus, for your reward is great in heaven – surrender to the joy of God, live with one foot in heaven’s glory, and see how it transforms everything we are and do. Amen.

Service: Reverend Michelle Dalliston. 5th November 2023. (St John The Baptist Church Peterborough UK)

Readings: 1 John 3:1-3, Matthew 5:1-12