All Saints Day
Churches each year dedicate a day to remember those who have preceded us. It acknowledges that we stand upon the shoulders of those who lived and died before us and the importance of giving them recognition.
Taking time to reflect upon the contributions of our ancestors reminds us that what we have accomplished in this life is partially due to the ancestors who preceded us.
Today we celebrate the feast of All Saints.
Saints aren’t people who lived perfect lives - or have supernatural powers. Saints are people who radiate the love and presence of Christ. Saints are people who love. Not mushy, syrupy, dripping with Kumbia Ya all the time. Saints are not patronizing with their love that simply says, “It is God’s will”…. But a love that has humanity and all that encompasses with one hand and Jesus in the other - constantly wresting and balancing both in this world.
Saints have a love and a presence so strong that it pulls people to the Center - their lives do and have reflect Jesus and pull people toward that center.
Today in the text, Lazarus has died. When Jesus saw Mary seeking him and her distress that Jesus had not been there, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. The text tells us Jesus began to weep.
Jesus began to weep.
This past year and a half have been a year and half filled with grief for so many in ways that even those of us who are experts in grief have not experienced. Preachers are now throwing around terms and word like “trauma informed preaching” and preaching from a standpoint of understanding the stress and trauma that the world is under.
On top of all the “normal” emotions of grief - grief and grieving have been impacted by unheard of cultural constraints- people not being able to be with their loved ones when they died, relying on others to care for their loved ones and feeling helpless. As the pandemic has progressed many facilities are now loosening their rules concerning visitations and who can get in to be with a loved one and when - but early on - visitation was not allowed. Period.
Anger, frustration, feelings of helplessness and inadequacy have surrounded so many. These feelings have not easily gone away - and I suspect that many will struggle with these emotions for years to come.
Here in our text today, Jesus the Son of God - like as we are, yet without sin, weeps. The Son of God weeps. His spirit was disturbed. The humanity of Jesus is seen here. I suspect that his grief was not much different than the grief that so many feel, but being the Son of God, he was able to do something about it. He raised Lazarus from the dead.
God feels. And he feels on our behalf.
Worldwide Covid numbers are approaching 5 millions. In the U.S. the numbers are approaching 750,000 deaths. Grief is all-around us. Each Sunday we pray for those who have departed. They each have left family and loved ones who grieve for them.
Grief is a foreign territory with rules alls its own that one only discovers by traversing the unwelcome terrain.
One unwelcome reality is being bone tired but unable to calm the mind and heart to receive deep rest.
And that is the promise that Jesus makes to us - that we will be given rest.
When death enters into our lives, how do we feel rest from that? How do you feel peace from that?
Knowing that God grieves too, that God grieves with you, and knowing that God has power over death and walking that terrain with God provides comfort in the knowing what God can do and will do in the midst of that grief.
In out text, Mary says to Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” We don’t know how she said this, as we can’t read her tone, whether it was a letting Jesus have it, “If you had BEEN here!!!! My brother would not have died.” Or whether it was simply an admission of recognized truth, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Either way, part of the unspoken is, “if only you were here, why weren’t you here? And possibly even don’t you care about us? Why or why weren’t you here? Mary doesn’t request anything of Jesus in this text, she merely states what she believes. And it moved Jesus. It moved Jesus greatly. The greek verb here for Jesus weeping is different than the verb used for Mary’s weeping. The verb here connotes some kind of something. Some kind of feeling, anger, intensity.
Saints are people who are characterized by love and compassion for others and the world around us. They aren’t unfeeling people, they don’t see the world through rose colored glasses., but Saint’s see the possibility for something different. A Saint is someone who sees the world not as it is - but as it should be. Saints call us to a new visions of ourselves, our church, and our world. They are not perfect people but they are people characterized by a fierce love and deep emotion. And they connect us to the Lord. They are aware of their total dependence upon God.
Jesus felt emotion, deep emotion in this text. Jesus himself speaks to God and alludes that he had been continually speaking to God. Asking of him. And he speaks out loud for the benefit of others.
Saints are not characterized by perfection, but by love.
Some Saints are formal saints that have canonized by the church, and others are those who are unrecognized officially. But we all recognize them.
So the question for today is - is how big is your heart? How holy is your life? How connected are you to God so that the love of Jesus Christ flows through you for those around you? How willing are you to call him to come? Can and does your life reflect some qualities of a recognized Saint? It should.
We celebrate the saints because they are vehicles of grace on earth but they also let us know that this is our calling as well.
So we are here to dedicate and remember the saints, and to dedicate our lives to become one.
Jesus is the place where death ends and everlasting life begins. Without denying the eschatological promise of resurrection and death’s final elimination, the life of Jesus breaks into our present and transforms it. What we need to hear is that on both sides of the grave there is life for us because Jesus has been sent to call our names. On both sides of the grave Jesus is life for us.
This is what All Saints Day is for: not just to remember those from long ago or those whose deaths are still painfully near, and not just to point ahead to that ultimate promise of resurrection, though both of these are certainly part of this day and to be affirmed.
More centrally, however, this day is about what all God’s saints have known and experienced, that here and now there is no death or grief or fear so deep and dark that the voice of Jesus cannot reach into it, call us out, and bring life.
The Epistle reading is from Revelation 21:1-6 today.
“See the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
They will be his peoples,
And God himself will be with them;
He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
Mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”
In the midst of our grief. In the midst of remembering, there is hope.
Even so Lord Jesus come.
Amen.
Taking time to reflect upon the contributions of our ancestors reminds us that what we have accomplished in this life is partially due to the ancestors who preceded us.
Today we celebrate the feast of All Saints.
Saints aren’t people who lived perfect lives - or have supernatural powers. Saints are people who radiate the love and presence of Christ. Saints are people who love. Not mushy, syrupy, dripping with Kumbia Ya all the time. Saints are not patronizing with their love that simply says, “It is God’s will”…. But a love that has humanity and all that encompasses with one hand and Jesus in the other - constantly wresting and balancing both in this world.
Saints have a love and a presence so strong that it pulls people to the Center - their lives do and have reflect Jesus and pull people toward that center.
Today in the text, Lazarus has died. When Jesus saw Mary seeking him and her distress that Jesus had not been there, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. The text tells us Jesus began to weep.
Jesus began to weep.
This past year and a half have been a year and half filled with grief for so many in ways that even those of us who are experts in grief have not experienced. Preachers are now throwing around terms and word like “trauma informed preaching” and preaching from a standpoint of understanding the stress and trauma that the world is under.
On top of all the “normal” emotions of grief - grief and grieving have been impacted by unheard of cultural constraints- people not being able to be with their loved ones when they died, relying on others to care for their loved ones and feeling helpless. As the pandemic has progressed many facilities are now loosening their rules concerning visitations and who can get in to be with a loved one and when - but early on - visitation was not allowed. Period.
Anger, frustration, feelings of helplessness and inadequacy have surrounded so many. These feelings have not easily gone away - and I suspect that many will struggle with these emotions for years to come.
Here in our text today, Jesus the Son of God - like as we are, yet without sin, weeps. The Son of God weeps. His spirit was disturbed. The humanity of Jesus is seen here. I suspect that his grief was not much different than the grief that so many feel, but being the Son of God, he was able to do something about it. He raised Lazarus from the dead.
God feels. And he feels on our behalf.
Worldwide Covid numbers are approaching 5 millions. In the U.S. the numbers are approaching 750,000 deaths. Grief is all-around us. Each Sunday we pray for those who have departed. They each have left family and loved ones who grieve for them.
Grief is a foreign territory with rules alls its own that one only discovers by traversing the unwelcome terrain.
One unwelcome reality is being bone tired but unable to calm the mind and heart to receive deep rest.
And that is the promise that Jesus makes to us - that we will be given rest.
When death enters into our lives, how do we feel rest from that? How do you feel peace from that?
Knowing that God grieves too, that God grieves with you, and knowing that God has power over death and walking that terrain with God provides comfort in the knowing what God can do and will do in the midst of that grief.
In out text, Mary says to Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” We don’t know how she said this, as we can’t read her tone, whether it was a letting Jesus have it, “If you had BEEN here!!!! My brother would not have died.” Or whether it was simply an admission of recognized truth, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Either way, part of the unspoken is, “if only you were here, why weren’t you here? And possibly even don’t you care about us? Why or why weren’t you here? Mary doesn’t request anything of Jesus in this text, she merely states what she believes. And it moved Jesus. It moved Jesus greatly. The greek verb here for Jesus weeping is different than the verb used for Mary’s weeping. The verb here connotes some kind of something. Some kind of feeling, anger, intensity.
Saints are people who are characterized by love and compassion for others and the world around us. They aren’t unfeeling people, they don’t see the world through rose colored glasses., but Saint’s see the possibility for something different. A Saint is someone who sees the world not as it is - but as it should be. Saints call us to a new visions of ourselves, our church, and our world. They are not perfect people but they are people characterized by a fierce love and deep emotion. And they connect us to the Lord. They are aware of their total dependence upon God.
Jesus felt emotion, deep emotion in this text. Jesus himself speaks to God and alludes that he had been continually speaking to God. Asking of him. And he speaks out loud for the benefit of others.
Saints are not characterized by perfection, but by love.
Some Saints are formal saints that have canonized by the church, and others are those who are unrecognized officially. But we all recognize them.
So the question for today is - is how big is your heart? How holy is your life? How connected are you to God so that the love of Jesus Christ flows through you for those around you? How willing are you to call him to come? Can and does your life reflect some qualities of a recognized Saint? It should.
We celebrate the saints because they are vehicles of grace on earth but they also let us know that this is our calling as well.
So we are here to dedicate and remember the saints, and to dedicate our lives to become one.
Jesus is the place where death ends and everlasting life begins. Without denying the eschatological promise of resurrection and death’s final elimination, the life of Jesus breaks into our present and transforms it. What we need to hear is that on both sides of the grave there is life for us because Jesus has been sent to call our names. On both sides of the grave Jesus is life for us.
This is what All Saints Day is for: not just to remember those from long ago or those whose deaths are still painfully near, and not just to point ahead to that ultimate promise of resurrection, though both of these are certainly part of this day and to be affirmed.
More centrally, however, this day is about what all God’s saints have known and experienced, that here and now there is no death or grief or fear so deep and dark that the voice of Jesus cannot reach into it, call us out, and bring life.
The Epistle reading is from Revelation 21:1-6 today.
“See the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
They will be his peoples,
And God himself will be with them;
He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
Mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”
In the midst of our grief. In the midst of remembering, there is hope.
Even so Lord Jesus come.
Amen.