All Saints Sunday; The Holy Apostle Hermas; The Holy Martyr Hermes.
Hebrews 11:33-12:2; Matthew 10:32-33, 37-38; 19:27-30.
Read Hebrews 11:33-12:2
After reading what the great martyrs and saints went through, the transition to “let us also” in the conclusion can seem daunting, to say the least. Sadly, there are still those today who are enduring the same things: torture, mockery, scourging, chains, imprisonment, and destitution. Like them, we want to see God’s kingdom come, justice enforced, and the metaphorical lions, fires, and swords in our lives stopped, quenched, and escaped from.
Suffering is suffering, no matter how it comes. We share in our common humanity; we all feel pain and no one’s is to be diminished for not being what other people call heroic. What does it mean, then, that “the world was not worthy” of these heroic sufferers? God giving us what we are not worthy of is called grace. They were a God-given grace to this world. We may not be at the extreme end of their experience, but we are following the same way. We recipients of grace, in laying aside sin, persevering in our journey, and looking to Jesus, also become a grace in this world, together with all the saints.
We all suffer for some wrong reasons, things we are to let go of. This is an encouragement for us to increasingly suffer for the right reasons and, in so doing , be people who others, both dear to us and new to us, would welcome accompanying them in their suffering.