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Isaiah 25 is a remarkable passage for All Saints' Sunday. It begins with an outburst of praise for what God has done and for what God will do. An unidentified city -- strong, oppressive and hostile -- will be destroyed and never rebuilt. Amid the destruction God protects and cares for the poor and the needy. Once this evil city and its ruthless inhabitants have been destroyed and vanish, another city will rise on Mount Zion where God will invite all people to a magnificent feast. God will wipe away all tears, he will swallow up death forever, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth. Then all the people will rejoice saying, "This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation" (v. 9). In this passage we have a glimpse of what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will do. On All Saints' Day it gives us an opportunity to reflect on the struggle of the saints in the past and how we are benefactors of their struggles and triumphs. It reminds us that with the earlier saints we have the same goal and aspirations as we too struggle in our search for "the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God" (Hebrews 11:10).

With the arrival of fall the football season is now in full swing. The fall mania is upon us. The marching bands, the huge crowds flocking to the stadium, the excitement of the play on the gridiron, all add up to this electrifying experience we Americans call football. For the next several weeks wives are going to lose contact with their husbands. Every favor that a wife asks of her husband will be answered the same way for the next several months: "Wait until this next play is over." One husband said to his wife as he turned on the television for the first game of the season, "Dear, do you have any final words before the season begins?" One wife had all she could stand of football. She turned off the television, stood in front of it, and crossed her arms, saying to her husband, "I believe you love football more than you love me." The husband thought for a moment and then said, "But I love you more than volleyball."

Football has changed a great deal since I played high school football in the fifties. We used the single wing formation, something that most people know nothing about today. The most significant change over the years has been the deployment of two separate teams, one for offense and one for defense. In my high school days, as a varsity player one was expected to play offensively and defensively. It was not uncommon for a player to play the entire game. Today the modern football player is either an offensive or defensive specialist. Even the cheerleaders have a set of cheers for each team. When the defensive team is on the field they shout, "Hold that line! Hold that line!" But when the offensive teams takes over they yell out, "Go, team, go! Go, team, go!"

There was a moment when Jesus faced his disciples. Behind him were all the years of public ministry, the trials and the triumphs, the ecstasy and the agony. All the previous events culminated in this moment as he stood before his disciples, a strange and motley mixture of human beings, and said, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). Along with this challenge there was a promise, "And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (v. 20b).

The saints who came before us were offensively-minded. They moved the ball down the field. Look what happened. It was like the concentric circles which result from a rock thrown into a pool of water. First there were twelve, then in the Upper Room 120, then 3,000 at the day of Pentecost after Peter preached his sermon. For four centuries the Christian fellowship was a mighty force and power that no emperor or nation could stop. But today a malaise has come over the church. It has become defensive, producing a fortress mentality, a kind of spiritual protectionism. There is a widespread desire to hold, protect, and keep what we have by avoiding risk. The cry is, "Hold that line!"

Let's stop the clock, call a time out, re-group, huddle, and do some serious thinking together. Let's consider one important question. How did we get here? We got here because the saints before us were willing to carry the ball forward. Take a stethoscope and listen to the heartbeat of the early church. What do you discover? J.B. Phillips in his introduction to his book, The Young Church in Action, states:

Here we see Christianity, the real thing, in action for the first time in human history. The young church is appealing in its simplicity and singlemindedness. Here we see the church ... valiant and unspoiled -- a body of ordinary men and women joined in an unconquerable fellowship never before seen on the earth ... There is someone at work here besides mere human beings ... never before has any small body of ordinary people so moved the world that their enemies could say with tears in their eyes, that these men and women "have turned the world upside down."

We got to where we are because of the readiness of these saints to believe, to obey, to give, to suffer, and if need be to die, so as to establish a way of fellowship united in love and faith. They were open to the God-ward side of life that is almost unknown to us today. Their rallying cry was never, "Hold that line," but rather, "Go, church, go!"

Take that stethoscope again and place it at the heartbeat of the church in the Dark Ages. The heartbeat is weak and nearly gone. What has happened to the church? It has grown fat and short of breath through prosperity and wealth, losing its vibrancy and power. After Constantine it became accommodating to the Roman Empire. It became comfortable and cozy with the culture and politics. The story is told that Pope Leo X took Erasmus, the humanist of Rotterdam, to view the treasury of the church. Leo said to Erasmus as he opened the door to the church's vast holdings, "Never again will the church have to say, 'Silver and gold have I not.' " Whereupon Erasmus answered, "Neither can it say, 'In the name of Jesus Christ rise up and walk.' "

Then on the scene came a young monk named Martin Luther, who was teaching theology at Wittenberg College in Germany. It was on this very weekend at the end of October in 1517, that he nailed the Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Wittenberg College, declaring a debate in regard to the church's sale of indulgences. This marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

This lowly monk challenged the mighty church and its papacy. A synod was called by the church in the town of Worms in order to deal with this iconoclastic young priest. Assembled in this small German town were Emperor Charles V, representatives of the papacy in Rome, and the brilliant John Eck, the papal legate who sought to interrogate Luther. Eck asked Luther, "Do you repudiate your books and the errors they contain?" There was dead silence as everyone waited for Luther's reply. This simple monk, a miner's son, with nothing to sustain him but his own faith in the word of God, answered, "I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me!" Carlyle called this "the greatest moment in the modern history of the world." The church historian Roland Bainton declared that this event was like lighting a match in a tinderbox. It spread like wildfire across Germany, Europe, and Eng-land and eventually to the new world. The rallying cry was, "Go, church, go!"

How do you think the Methodists got here? It was the direct result of men and women who had the fervor and enthusiasm of a Francis Asbury who carried the ball against stiff odds and a rugged opponent. Asbury covered over 270,000 miles on horseback across wilderness trials. Asbury crossed and recrossed the Allegheny Mountains more than sixty times. He traveled from Maine to Virginia, through the Carolinas, wading through swamps, swimming the rivers that flowed down the eastern slopes of the Alleghenies to the Atlantic, on down to Georgia. On numerous occasions he was so sick and exhausted he had to tie himself to the saddle. When he became the episcopal leader of the Methodist Church in 1784, the church only had a few thousand members. At the time of his death in 1816, the Methodist Church had more than 200,000 members, at that time the largest Protestant church in America.

We are where we are because of the saints who carried the ball. These saints were not passive or defensive. They did not shout, "Hold that line!" Rather, they were inspired by the rallying cry, "Go, church, go!" They did go and they conquered in the name of the risen Christ. We are inspired by those who have fought the fight of faith before us. They faced difficult odds and their accomplishments were the result of difficult struggles. Jesus in the most critical moment of his life struggled with the possibilities of a very painful future. In the garden as he was praying he knew the consequences of what lay ahead. In all honesty he cried out to the Father, "Allow this cup to pass from me." Jesus was saying, "I don't want to die." He struggled with the words, "Let it be possible." He conquered with the words, "Not my will but yours be done." In thinking about the saints who went before us we realize what a great heritage we have received, and we have the responsibility of passing it on to those who come after us. We find ourselves as a vital link that connects the past with the future. We face our struggles as they faced theirs. However, we are facing new struggles that our forefathers and mothers never had to face. We are facing very complex problems and issues resulting from our hi-tech society as we enter a new millenium. But there is one thing that remains the same, as it did for Jesus and Christians in every age: we all will conqueror with Jesus' words, "Father, not what I want, but what you want" (Mark 14:36).

Just like Isaiah said, we are glad and rejoice in the God of our salvation -- for all that God has done, for all that God is doing, for all that God will do.