All Saints Sunday
Sunday, November 2, 2025
The Rev. David Wilcox
Have you ever had one of those weeks where you feel like you’re running in a dozen directions at once and not doing especially well at any of them? You start out with good intentions, but somewhere between the to-do lists, the emails, and the late-night dishes, things start to slip. You lose patience. You forget to pray. You say something you wish you hadn’t. And by the end of it all, you think, “I should really be better at this by now.”
I’ve had plenty of those weeks myself. And when I look back on my life and ministry, I can see the same pattern—moments of faithfulness mixed right in with moments of failure. For a long time, that used to really discourage me. Because I thought following Jesus meant getting it right more often than I do. But what I’ve learned, and what this feast of All Saints reminds us, is that faithfulness isn’t about perfection. It’s about grace. And grace is never something we walk through alone.
All Saints’ Day reminds us that we are part of something much bigger than ourselves. We’re not just a group of people trying our best to be good Christians in the here and now. We’re part of a great, living story, a communion of saints, a cloud of witnesses, men, women, and children across the ages who have run this same race and who now walk beside us in faith and prayer.
Think of them:
Luke, the physician who used his gifts to tell the story of Jesus so the world could know it.
Margaret, the queen who cared for the poor while raising her children and leading her people.
Joan, the shepherd girl who heard God’s call and followed it with courage.
Martin, the soldier who tore his cloak in half to clothe a beggar and found himself clothing Christ.
John, the priest who cared faithfully for his flock.
Ignatius, who faced the wild beasts rather than deny his Lord.
Each of them shows us something of what it means to live that great commandment, to love God and to love our neighbor. Their lives weren’t easy, and they certainly weren’t perfect. They faced doubts, temptation, heartbreak, and fear. Some were called to heroic acts, others to quiet, hidden faithfulness. But in every case, God’s grace was the thread that held them together.
And that’s what holiness really looks like, not flawless living, but faithful living. It’s not about how rarely we fall, but about whether we let grace pick us back up again. The saints were people who trusted that no matter what came their way, God’s love was bigger than their failures. And that’s good news for all of us, because if God’s grace could work through them, it can work through us too.
That’s the gift of this day: the reminder that we don’t walk the Christian life in isolation. We walk it surrounded by the saints in glory, by the saints sitting next to us in the pews, and by the saints yet to come. The Saints in heaven pray for us. The saints here on earth walk with us. And together, we are the body of Christ, carrying the light of Christ into the world.
And that brings us to baptism, because baptism is where this story begins for each of us. It’s where we’re marked as Christ’s own forever and joined to that great fellowship of saints.
In just a few minutes, we’ll make our way to the font as little Isla is baptized. Through water and the Spirit, she will die to sin and be raised to new life in Christ. She’ll be sealed with the sign of the cross and grafted into the life of Jesus. She’ll belong, completely, eternally, to the household of God.
And that moment, as simple and sweet as it will be, is powerful. Because in it, God will make a promise to Isla, and we will make a promise, too. We’ll promise to do all in our power to support her in her life in Christ. That means praying for her, teaching her, and showing her—by our lives—what God’s love looks like in action. It means being there when faith feels hard or far away. It means reminding her, as we remind one another, that she never walks this journey alone.
And as we witness her baptism today, it’s also a time for us to remember our own.
To remember that we, too, have been washed in that same water and marked by that same cross.
To remember that when we stumble, when we lose heart, when life gets too busy or too heavy, the grace poured out at our baptism hasn’t gone anywhere.
It’s still there, still holding us, still calling us back, still whispering the same truth that God spoke to each of us at the font: “You are my beloved child. You are mine.”
Because baptism isn’t just a moment, it’s an identity. It’s who we are, and it’s who we keep becoming, as grace shapes us into the people God calls us to be. So as we pray for Isla, we’re also renewing that calling for ourselves: to love God, to love our neighbor, and to trust that God’s grace is always enough for the journey.
The grace we celebrate in baptism is strengthened every time we come to this table to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, to be nourished by the same love that sustains the saints in glory. Here, at this altar, heaven and earth meet. Here, we join our voices with angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven. Here, our bond with all the saints who have gone before us is the strongest it can be on this side of eternity.
When we kneel at the rail or stand at the altar, we do so not just as individuals, but as part of that great, unbroken communion, the living and the departed, the known and the unknown, all gathered around the same Lord, fed by the same grace, held by the same love.
So come.
Come to this table for the grace you need.
Come to be reminded that you are surrounded by saints, friends of God who cheer you on, who pray for you, and who wait to welcome you home.
And one day, by that same grace, may we too be counted among their number, those who have fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith, until at last we see the One who makes all things new, face to face.
