All Saints’ Sunday, 11/3/2024

Texts: John 11:32-44, Revelation 21:1-6

Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The wounds of grief cut deep. Many are the words that are insufficient to heal such a wound. It is often said that only another person that has gone through loss can understand another’s grief. Solidarity cannot be theoretical. It must be an fleshed experience. One must have bared the scars, or at least, opened up a vulnerable space to hold the wound, to be in reverent presence to such human moments. And then there are so many expectations and inculturations to grief and solidarity, that something as natural as tears and weeping are banned from the scene in the name of holding a certain image of oneself, perhaps even calling that dignity. In other occasions, grief is overpassed by imposed joys, for sometimes people feel a need to drown sorrow with impossible happiness. Not to deny hope, but hope cannot come at the expense of feeling what we feel in the moment. Tears can be a gift to those in pain, the evidence and trace of suffering love being rooted within our very bodies and minds. So to celebrate All Saints, to take in the joy of all new and old saints have in that divine communion with our Lord, we must first go through the very human ordeal that death, loss and grief bring, because it is to that experience that the voice of the resurrection calls to.

Today’s text in John’s Gospel, recounts that famous moment where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, a moment of great awe and joy, which stands alongside one of the most laconic and potently heartbreaking verses in the Bible: “Jesus wept”. Our text begins with an outpouring of grief: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” How many us would utter Mary’s words? I have many names to which I can attach this utterance. It is for us obvious, that losing those we love in this life is wounding and can even feel unfair in some instances. Mary knows the power of God, “Lord if you had been here…”, but the outcome that must be wrestled with is unchanged, death has inevitably entered the house. Death can be expected, but it is unwelcome. Precisely in this moment of tension, the gospel writer goes into the depths of one of the fundamental Christian experiences. “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” Jesus saw Mary and the others in their sorrow and tears, and it begins this movement within Jesus, the stirrings of grief and loss affect Him deeply. God in the flesh becomes vulnerable to our own vulnerability, He begins to suffer with the people, He is fully present to them. The next two verses reveal the gravity of feeling: “He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep”. I am very much taken by Mary’s invitation, for it mirrors an earlier moment in the Gospel, when Phillip invites Nathanael to “come and see” the Lord who has the words of eternal life. There is a powerful reversal here: it is now Jesus that is being invited to “come and see”. To

come and see the source of pain, the gaping wound that bleeds with tears and sorrow: the lifeless body of the beloved Lazarus. And at such a sight, Jesus could not help but cry. Tears flowed from God’s own face. The crowd rightly observed two things about this moment: Jesus’ weeping was a sign of His love, even God could not keep from weeping at the sight of pain, but also Jesus had to deal with the skepticism: could He not do otherwise, that all this might never have happened? Both are legitimate observations. It is important to note, that even in the expectation of God’s glory showing up, for the raising of Lazarus was to testify of what will happen to all of us, Jesus did not withhold Himself from grief and tears.

The presbyterian preacher and writer Frederick Buechner remarked that “Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention”. Tears can communicate profound experiences or feelings. If we pay close attention to Jesus’ tears, we can glean from them that Jesus, even in the joy of God’s promise of resurrection, cannot but be wounded at our suffering, because His love is bounded to us so closely. He cannot withstand the offense of death as having its triumph. He cannot be unmoved because He is a God of solidarity. These tears are one of our faith’s greatest treasures. Because in the presence of suffering, and a lot of suffering is just inexplicable, Jesus does not ignore the pain. Jesus stands with us in pains of love. He is not absent, but fully present and in continuum with our suffering. Whenever we ask God, where were you? Perhaps we don’t receive answers or

explanations that satisfy our question. There is no adequate theology to explain suffering away. But we do have His tears. We have His grief. We have His cross. And at the end of it all, when we have gone through the gauntlet, we share in His resurrection. He has given Himself so completely to us, that even in the deserts of life, He is right there. No place of our life is strange for God in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has removed the stone of separation between our death and His glory. He calls us out, in all our vulnerability and decay, to live in Him because He has heard our cry. Jesus’ life is an answered prayer for all eternity. It is the testament to God’s intimate presence in every aspect of our life from tragedy to happiness. And so our lives are free, to be what they are in all its complexity, because God is present to all of it, and despite all the ups and downs, God calls us out into His own self, that we might be sharers, as we say in the liturgy, of His endless life and joy.

So this is the joy of all Saints that we celebrate today. It is the power of the resurrection that unbinds us and calls us out from our deaths to rest in life eternal with God. And while we are afflicted, it is not the end. The communion of saints is the testament of a whole community of witnesses that have struggled and nonetheless have been uplifted by the mercy of God, lives that speak of a hope that breaks our despair. Grief is not the only voice, but the voice of Jesus accompanies our grief to remind us of a Presence that is more than death. I’m reminded of my grandmother’s funeral, how her life was juxtaposed to the proclamation of hope. My grandmother

lived with Multiple Sclerosis for most of her adult life. She overcame many obstacles. And I remember thinking about how difficult it was for her to walk by herself, and yet how joyful she could be nonetheless. And I remember also, during that service, echoing the vision of the Book of Revelation, how there came an image in my mind, of my grandmother walking freely, dancing even, in the streets of a Heavenly Jerusalem. And I had tears in my eyes, not just of grief, but of joy intermingled. It gives me great comfort that God understands and sheds tears with us, but even more so, that : “He will wipe every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’…’It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.” The realization of all saints we hold dear: God, in whom we have our beginning, God who is our End, has made our death die. No one is gone, we are held in newness of life, here, now, and forever. Amen.