EDITOR'S NOTE: On Oct. 23, 2021, I was ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and installed as pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. I also served the same church for four years from October 2017 to October 2021 a synodically authorized minister. The journey together these past four years has been an amazing one, full of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Nov. 7, All Saints Sunday.
This week's gospel: John 11:32-44
32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
Jesus Raises Lazarus to Life
38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
The message:
On this All Saints Sunday 2021, who could have thought that we’d STILL be surrounded by the vast shroud of grief and death that the COVID pandemic has wrought on our world.
Last year, as the Digital Team volunteers and I performed the All Saints service, I was consoled by the thought that at least we were on our way out of the darkness. Soon, we’d be worshipping together again as a church, and soon the threat of the pandemic would subside.
And yet it would take another seven months from that point before we held service together again. … And the pandemic is taking its sweet time of letting go of its grip on our world.
In fact, we recently surpassed some very sobering statistics.
We now have surpassed more than 5,000,000 million deaths around the world from COVID, and here in the U.S. alone, we’ve surpassed 750,000 deaths from COVID. …
And it’s not a distant worry that is out there. Rather it is a worry right here in our community, as many of us can name someone close to us who was affected.
But, contributing to the extended grief and trauma that grips much of the world, is the fact that the pandemic isn’t responsible only for the death of loved ones. … It’s also responsible for the death of so much else and responsible for shaking up our world as we know it.
For instance, the pandemic is also responsible for the death of much loved traditions, whether they be national, local or even family traditions, which has contributed to our collective sense of loss this past year and a half.
And the pandemic is responsible for the death of jobs, and the very means by which many supported their families, which has contributed to an overall sense of grief for millions of people.
And the pandemic is responsible for the death of businesses, some of which had been in families for generations. … And we could go on.
So, regardless of whether we’ve actually become sick from COVID, or whether we know someone who has passed from COVID … all of us have been constantly surrounded by grief and trauma for an extended period of time. … Going on now at least a year and a half.
We are all living it, feeling it and grieving it. … And there is a large collective desire to just push on through ... move through the grief so that we can get to a brighter tomorrow.
To the contrary, however, All Saints Sunday is designed to remind us that it is important to linger in the lament that comes with our grief so that we can better hear a vital message.
And that message is that Jesus promises us in today’s gospel that our God is not a distant God oblivious to our pain, but quite the opposite. … This text tells us that Jesus feels our pain because of his deep love for us and because he wants to show his solidarity with us in the pain that we endure. … This is who our God is.
If you had your Bible open this morning, following me along in the reading of the gospel text, you may have noticed that this section is titled “Jesus Raises Lazarus to Life.” … But, curiously, did you notice that of all of the text, only 2 verses actually deal with Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. … “When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’”
And so just what is the writer of the Gospel of John doing in all of the other 41 verses in Chapter 11 prior to that pinnacle moment? … Well, he’s creating a space for the very human act of living with death and the accompanying grief. … Every single one of the previous 41 verses are about how Lazarus’ sisters and friends respond to his death. How they are carrying their grief … and as you can imagine, they are devastated.
And in this space, Jesus uses this very human moment to share with us his vital message: God is not impervious to our suffering, and God is here to walk alongside each of us in our grief journey.
I mean, can there be a more human moment for Jesus than when Jesus responds to Mary’s grief?
We lose some of the context of this story today because the lectionary writers chose to begin after Mary saying to Jesus, “You could have prevented Lazarus’ death if you’d only been here earlier.” … Which is a very important detail of the story because it sets up the seminal moment of Jesus’ despair.
Here you have this sister who is so grief stricken at the loss of her brother, that she is moved to go find Jesus and ask him why. You’re the Son of God, why weren’t you here in time to save him.
Add on top of that the grief of the supporters who had followed Mary to find Jesus … and the moment is just too much for Jesus. … In fact, we are told that he was “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.”
And it’s very hard to comprehend what happens next. … Jesus, himself, begins to weep.
Can you imagine? … The Son of God. … Our Savior. … The master of all creation and who became human to walk in our shoes … begins to weep.
Faith Family, these are not tears of sentimentalism. They are not crocodile tears as I used to call the big fat teardrops that would fall when the kids were fake crying.
No, Jesus is truly devastated, and he is weeping for Mary and her terrible grief over the loss of her brother. … And Jesus is weeping for Lazarus, and the loss of his friend. … And finally Jesus is weeping for death in general, knowing how soul crushing it is to us, his children.
So, after Jesus has had a moment to collect himself, and to mourn in solidarity with us, he asks to be taken to Lazarus’ tomb and for the rock to be rolled away from the entrance. … And when Mary tries to protest because it’s been four days and surely Lazarus must be decomposing by now, Jesus reminds her that nothing is impossible in her belief. .... “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
Jesus wants Mary to know that even in her deepest, darkest moment that God has not abandoned her. She may have at one point wondered why Jesus didn’t come earlier to prevent her brother from dying, but now Jesus says I am here. … And he moves to the tomb and raises Lazarus from the dead. … And then Lazarus walks off.
Faith Family, the conflict in this story cannot be lossed on us. Despite the good feelings we may feel for Mary who has her brother returned to her, and for even for Lazarus himself, we know his being risen from the grave is but a temporary reprieve. … Lazarus is still human. He will still die a human death at some point.
So if we can’t escape the human condition of perishing, just what exactly is it that Jesus wants us to take from this moment?
Well, I think it’s two things …
First, our God is a deeply relational God who deeply cares for us, feels pain on our behalf and is troubled over the human condition of death. Jesus wants us to remember that.
And second, God makes space for death and grief. God knows that our sadness and grief is an entirely human reaction, but Jesus also promises that he will be there to wipe away the tears. … And he promises that because of our belief, we will see the glory of God. … God will raise our loved ones too, just as he did Lazarus. ... That is a promise.
As the front of your bulletin today tells us, “On this All Saints Day we celebrate the victory won for all the faithful dead, but we grieve for our beloved dead as well, knowing that God honors our tears.”
Faith Family, on this All Saints Sunday, we honor the grief the entire world has endured from this ongoing pandemic. … Just as we honor our very own saints Rose Hanson, Edward Poppel and Karen Judy Getz.
We grieve that they are no longer here worshiping with us, but thanks to today’s text we also know God is honoring those tears, while reminding us of the glorious resurrection that is to come, for all of us, when there will be no more death and no more weeping.
And that is the Good News on this All Saints Sunday, 2021. … Amen.
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