It used to be that people believed in an afterlife. The Christian hope is that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”(Romans 8:18). But take away the hope of a glorious future beyond this life and we have to try and find it here and now. The idea of ending our days in a retirement community in Florida might be beyond most of us. But increasingly, people are living for retirement.

The fastest growing metro area in the United States is called The Villages. It’s a retirement community that takes up eighty square miles of central Florida and is home to one hundred and forty thousand people. It contains nine state-of-the-art hospitals, a dozen sprawling shopping centres, over one hundred bars and restaurants, and more than fifty golf courses.
Retirement is certainly big business. The US has a total GDP of twenty-three trillion dollars, but the assets of all American pension funds are nearly fifty percent larger, making them easily the biggest players in the financial markets. In the words of journalist Sam Kriss, ‘mass consumer pensions have turned our entire adulthood into a preamble to old age. You work for three, four, five decades—all so you can enjoy those few, brief, useless years between retirement and death’. He goes as far as to say that ‘the entire global economy is now a machine for producing satisfied retirees’.
The Villages attempts to sell people the thing they have been working for all their lives – perfect leisure before they die. Sounds ideal? Kriss visited the Villages and says that it’s the worst place he’s ever been to.
So what’s not to like? According to Kriss, the message of The Villages is that ‘the true purpose of human life is to have fun, to drink and play golf, and you can only really experience the true purpose of human life once you’ve retired’.
It used to be that people believed in an afterlife. The Christian hope is that ‘the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us’ (Romans 8:18). But take away the hope of a glorious future beyond this life and we have to try and find it here and now.
The idea of ending our days in a retirement community in Florida might be beyond most of us.
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My heart becomes filled when I reflect upon the lyrics of this hymn! But it should also be remembered that lyrics are meant to be sung to a melody or tune. I don’t mean this as a slight to any of the tunes – past or present – to which For All the Saints have been sung, but the tune now most associated with this hymn, Sine Nomine (without name), is part of what has made this song so meaningful to me. This tune was written by Ralph Vaughn Williams at the beginning of the 20th Century. I cannot really explain why a certain tune sounds to my ear as if it so well fits a given lyric, but I cannot imagine a better tune. It sounds to me as if it is a victory march, so that when one imagines countless host from all places streaming through gates of pearl while singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost – the earthly soul is spiritually elevated.

Hebrews 12 begins by proclaiming:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us….
Certainly, the cloud of witnesses portrays saints who have left this earthly life and whose souls are now found in heaven with the LORD. Perhaps the number includes all those named in Hebrews 11 – and perhaps we are meant to know it includes even more. Yet, the designation “witnesses” could be considered in two different ways. The saints could be thought of as witnesses in the sense that they are looking upon believers in this present world who are running with endurance their own earthly races. Or, it could be the other way around. Perhaps, readers could be looking heavenward themselves, to those prior saints who “witness” in the sense of giving us the testimony of their former lives. In that manner, the “cloud” would be testifying or witnessing to us as to what running the race of life with greater endurance as a Christian should look like. They witness to us about how our faith should be demonstrated in the manner in which we live.
That second way of understanding “the cloud of witnesses” is how I tend to read Hebrews 12:1 – and though Hebrews 12:1 might not have been planted in the mind of Anglican Priest William Walsham How when he penned the lyrics to For All the Saints in 1864 – to me, that sentiment permeates his words. The lyrics beckon singers to consider for themselves how to serve the Lord best in their own day, as a part of the church militant, to the glory of God, through the encouragement of looking upon those citizens already enrolled in the church triumphant.
The hymn begins by directing our voices to bless the name of Jesus for those saints who now enjoy their eternal rest – saints who had confessed the name of Christ to the world during the time of their mortal lives:
For all the saints who from their labors rest,Who Thee, by faith, before the world confessed,Thy name O Jesus, be forever blest.
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The cross looms large and men, women, boys, and girls see themselves as crucified with Christ. The gospel humbles us lower than the most scathing human criticism, but it simultaneously exalts us into God’s gracious favor so that the negative appraisal of our fellow man no longer devastates us.

A healthy church is one that is shaped by the gospel. Our people need to see the beauty of Christ. Nothing will enable them to lovingly and humbly give and receive constructive critique more than heart-searching, expository gospel preaching. This is our great task and privilege as ministers—to proclaim Christ. And as we do, whether we recognize it or not, we will be promoting a healthy culture of criticism.
What is it that fuels both a hypercritical spirit and an aversion to criticism? It is a high view of self. Man criticizes incessantly in order to feel better about self. Man runs from or suppresses criticism directed his way for the same purpose, to protect and promote the self. There is a certain high-mindedness native to us all that is averse to both giving and receiving constructive critique.
At the cross, however, man’s high-mindedness is utterly decimated as he comes face-to-face with the savage heinousness of sin. Sin is insurrection of the highest sort, a rebellious uprising against the Creator and Ruler of all things. While the law certainly does much to show us our sin, it is actually the gospel that gives us the most alarming impression of the infinite affront that our sin is to God.
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