For All the Saints

For all the saints who from their labors rest…

Those are the first words of a hymn that has been sung at funerals, at memorials, and on All Saints’ Day for more than a century and a half. The words come from William Walsham How, an English clergyman, who published them in 1864. The tune most of us know came later. Ralph Vaughan Williams composed it in 1906 for The English Hymnal, and it’s called SINE NOMINE, Latin for “without a name.”

I can’t tell you what Vaughan Williams meant by that title, and I don’t want to put words in his mouth. But it’s a fitting name for a hymn about people whose names may be unknown to the world and are never forgotten by God.

Who Counts as a Saint

Start with the word, because it’s been misunderstood for a long time.

Most of us hear “saint” and picture stained glass: someone unusually holy, with a halo and a good reputation. The New Testament doesn’t use the word that way. Paul writes “to all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints” (Rom. 1:7). He writes “to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi” (Phil. 1:1). That’s a congregation, with its arguments and its unfinished business. They’re the people God has set apart for himself, which is something he does to them and not something they manage.

So when a church reads names on All Saints’ Day, it isn’t honoring a spiritual elite. It’s remembering ordinary believers. The grandmother who prayed in the kitchen. The usher who never missed a Sunday. The friend who was baptized late and wasn’t sure he belonged. Their holiness was never their own. It belonged to the one who claimed them.

Saints aren’t people who got everything right. They’re people Christ has made his own.

Rest

The hymn begins with rest, and it’s honest about why. “For all the saints who from their labors rest.” Revelation hears a voice from heaven say, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on… that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!” (Rev. 14:13).

Rest isn’t a small word for people who are tired. Grief is tiring, and so is a long illness, and so is a faith held through hard years. The hymn doesn’t hurry past death or dress it up. Their earthly work is finished, and so is their suffering. But death doesn’t get the final word. They rest in Christ, and the one who holds them will raise them.

One Communion

Then the hymn says something that only makes sense if you believe it:

O blest communion, fellowship divine! We feebly struggle, they in glory shine… Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.

The Creeds call this “the communion of saints.” It’s easy to say and hard to feel. Sitting in a pew, we’re mostly aware of the people who are here. The hymn insists that the church is larger than the room, and larger than the century. “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,” says Hebrews (12:1), and these aren’t spectators watching us struggle from the stands. In Hebrews, they’re the people of chapter 11, whose lives bear witness to the faithfulness of God. They ran the race before us, and their stories remind us that the same God who sustained them is sustaining us.

Death has divided the room. It hasn’t divided Christ. The one who holds the living holds the dead, so the line between “us” and “them” isn’t where it looks like it is. I wrote more about this in What Death Actually Is, and about why a Christian can be called both a saint and a sinner in Saint and Sinner at the Same Time. The short version: we are held, together, by someone other than ourselves.

There’s a quieter point in that for anyone who has ever been told they didn’t belong. The communion of saints isn’t a membership list kept by a congregation or a denomination. Those can put your name on a roll or take it off. They don’t hold the book that matters. “All are one in Thee” means our oneness isn’t something we’ve achieved. It’s something Christ has given us, and he doesn’t lose track of people.

Courage for the Fight

The hymn knows the Christian life is a struggle. A later stanza turns toward it:

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long, steals on the ear the distant triumph song…

It’s a gentle picture. The saints aren’t only memories. Their song reaches us on bad days. You’re tired, the work is long, and you hear faintly, from a long way off, the sound of people who made it through.

…and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.

That’s the kind of encouragement the church has always given itself. We don’t borrow courage from the saints because they were impressive. We borrow it because they were not. They were frightened and doubtful and sometimes unfaithful, and Christ kept them anyway. Their stories remind us of the promise Christ has made to us, too. He hasn’t abandoned his people, and he won’t abandon you.

And the triumph song they sing isn’t really about their victory. It’s about Christ’s. The saints made it through because the one who defeated death held them fast.

Not the End of the Hymn

Most people expect a hymn like this to finish with the saints resting in heaven. But the hymn has another scene to show us.

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day…

The saints triumphant rise in bright array.

Christian hope isn’t about souls floating off into light. It has a body in it. Paul calls Christ “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20), the first harvest of a field that is still coming in. The saints at rest are waiting for the day when death itself is undone. The multitude John sees in Revelation, “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,” standing before the throne and crying out “Salvation belongs to our God” (Rev. 7:9-10), is the church as God means it to be seen at last. The hymn’s final stanza then widens to that same host, gathered from every shore and singing to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It does end in glory. It’s just glory with the resurrection behind it.

Heaven isn’t the end of the Christian story. Resurrection is.

What to Do on November 1

If someone you love has died, today is a good day to say their name out loud. If you’ve lost people in ways that left you more complicated than sad, say theirs too. Grief and gratitude can sit at the same table.

This is what the hymn gives us: gratitude for those who have gone before us, courage for the days we’re still living, and hope for the day when death itself will be undone.

Sing the hymn if you know it. If you don’t, read the words slowly. And if you’re someone who’s been told, by a church or a family or yourself, that you’re outside the circle, hear what the hymn says about whose circle it is.

Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.