Death is something we all face, something that we think about and experience multiple times in our lives and each time it’s a bit different. If we are honest with ourselves the majority of the time we turn a blind eye to death. People die all around us and we turn our backs on the suffering. Paradoxically when we experience death close to us it is something that stays with us. I think it’s because we like to think of ourselves as superheroes. We’ve spent countless amounts of time and billions of dollars deluding ourselves that we are the decision makers – that we are the masters of the universe; or at the very least our own destiny. Death consistently reminds us that this is not the case.
Our scripture this morning finds Jesus in the midst of struggling with these exact issues. His friend Lazarus is dead – and it seems like Jesus took his sweet time getting there. As he approaches Bethany, Martha meets him, followed quickly by Mary and loads of others grieving the loss of a dear friend and brother. Mary and Martha are certain that were Jesus just a bit quicker Lazarus would still be alive. People surround him – including his disciples – and you can just hear them gathered in groups and whispering to themselves. ‘Man, he loved him!’ and ‘He healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have saved Lazarus?’
Jesus is balancing all the needs of the people and his own as he stands in the face of death. We can only imagine what he feels as he approaches the tomb. The text tells us that he was ‘disturbed in spirit’, but I think that’s a tad unfair. –Translations point us toward his sadness, his anger, and his frustration. How many of us have felt those things in the face of death? Jesus – knowing what was to come, both for himself and others – walks to the stone that was rolled away and calls Lazarus out of the darkness into new life. (sound familiar?)
One of the reasons that this text shows up on All Saint’s Sunday is because Jesus’ response to Lazarus’ death has some insights into our understanding and dealings with death. The text deals fairly with the reality of death. Lazarus was dead. Three days in the tomb. This was no accident, no false reporting. His family and friends were worried about the state of his body when Jesus announced his intention to open the tomb. We find Mary and Martha are absorbed with grief – attempting to understand what is happening to them and what it might mean for the future. And yet, Jesus does not stand aloof from the humanness that surrounds him. Jesus wept. He is deeply disturbed at death’s d
evastating force.
[1]
Death is a reality in our lives. We suffer and those we love suffer. Our comfort is in knowing that God suffers with us. The power of the God of our ancestors is that there is nothing for us to fear anymore! We have been set free, looking forward to a promised day. In a very certain sense Lazarus’ story is our story, for we have already died once in baptism. Jesus calls us out by name from death to life and gives us daily a new beginning.
[2] It is as if the text is telling us “See – here now
before you lie to die – the resurrection and the life in him. See in him the God who is (present tense) victor over death. Then live as though the Eternal were now because God is. Live as though you belong, in life and in death, to God.”
[3]
And so we hold tight to God’s promises – that every tear shall be wiped away and the sting of death will be no more. We hear God call from Isaiah to Revelation “See I am making all things new” and know that WE are those things being made new each and every day. We are sent out to live as people free from the shroud Isaiah speaks of, free from the fear of death and sent into the world.
We have each been touched by someone along our faith journey – somewhere along the way we wouldn’t be here without other people. It might be more people than we can count, or it might be a single individual. We might have long standing relationships or simple fleeting moments of God’s presence between us. No matter when, where, how or how many it is those moments that have helped bring us to this place in life.
When we celebrate all saints day, we are not just remembering people who are gone. We are also not just remembering people who are hallowed – perfect visions of God’s love in the world. Those people don’t exist. We are none of those things – nor are the people we remember today. Martin Luther reminded us that we are simultaneously in one instant saint and sinner. In our imperfections we give witness to the lavish love of God, who receives us by grace and knits us all together in one holy church, the body of Christ.
[4] On All Saint’s Day we celebrate how God acts in and through us to build the kingdom in the world.
This became crystal clear to me about two years ago. I can say with honesty and in love that my grandmother was no saint. Regardless, she was a heck of a grandmother. She was an elementary school teacher and her love of reading is something that she passed to my mother and then on to both my brother and I. Ainsley was born almost exactly one year to the day after we buried her. In my house I have a book that Granny used to read to hundreds of children in Marshall Texas, a book that she read to me as I grew up. My mother and I read it to Ainsley now. Ainsley will never know my grandmother, and yet she is covered in her fingerprints.
It is much the same with the communion of the saints. Every time we ordain someone for office in the church there is a moment called the laying on of hands. All the ordained individuals present come forward and place their hand on the ordinand, or on the people in front of them. They make a web of people, a web of support and connection between God’s children. At times I’ve seen nearly entire churches come forward to stand with one individual. In the same way, when we gather – and at all other moments in our lives – the hands of the saints that have passed and the saints to come touch us, and surround us. They hold us up, and they carry us forward. These saints are not just people who give of themselves unselfishly, they are people with sharp tongues and quick tempers. We celebrate them all because we are –together- children of God. This is the beauty of All Saint’s Sunday.
“On this day we are invited to see not only the depth (reaching back through the generations who have gone before) but also the breadth (seeing the array of the saints as they assemble around the world) of the people of God.”
[5] We are brought together to recognize our connection to one another and how we carry the faith forward in ways large and small, seen and unseen. It is this table that is the clearest sign of the thread God weaves in all our lives. It is here that we gather with all those who have gone, and all those to come to be united in mission and ministry. We are fed, we are blessed, and we are sent out – to be saints for the world. We live firmly into the hope of that statement, always recognizing that it is God’s work we do, and that we are not alone.
thanksgiving morning as we waited for uncle brian and lily to arrive from nc and aunt kelly from the atl, we decided to explore campus. i'd never been on uga campus before and it was beautiful. the sun and the fall foliage made me miss georgia very much. ainsley was a trooper - got her picture taken with a bulldog statue and walked all across campus. on the way home we drove by peter buck's house - apparently darlene took piano lessons in it when she was a girl. :)
