All Saints' Day - Hope Lutheran Church

John 11:32-45

³²When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt (threw herself) at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if (only) you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

³³When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. ³⁴He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”³⁵Jesus began to weep. ³⁶So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”³⁷But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” ³⁸Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹Jesus 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.” ⁴⁰Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. ⁴²I 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.” ⁴³When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴The 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.”

⁴⁵Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

__________

Today we celebrate All Saints’ Day. It was actually three days ago on November 1st, but we celebrate together today, on All Saints’ Sunday. It is a festival day honoring all of the saints, known and unknown. Generally, we spend a lot of time talking about death around this time of year. 

Which is a little weird, right? There seems to be a movement away from the language of death in our society. We don’t say someone “died” much anymore. We code our language. In hospitals, sometimes nurses will say that someone “expired” or “passed away.” When people are killed in disaster or tragedy, the news often tells us how many “victims” there were. 

And this maybe seems even stranger. Because we are living in a time when death seems to be happening ALL THE TIME. It seems we are unable to go a week or two without hearing about someone else “passing away,” or more “victims” being claimed. It is impossible to escape this news and these euphemisms for death. 

But if we are going to fight against something, we have to name it for what it is. It is death. It is murder. It is violence. And, make no mistake, it is the enemy. 

This morning we read what is possibly Jesus’ most significant miracle. It doesn’t get much more impressive than raising someone from the grave who has been dead for four days, right? 

Unfortunately we only get a piece of this challenging and beautiful story in the lectionary. Right before the passage we read this morning, Jesus was teaching somewhere out side of Judea and Lazarus’ sisters sent word that Lazarus was going to die. Instead of immediately going to be with his friends, these people he dearly loved, Jesus stayed a little longer teaching and healing. Eventually, he headed into Judea to see his friends. As Jesus arrives, Martha went out to greet him and professes her faith in Jesus but also make the accusation: “if only you had been here, our brother would not have died.” Then Mary comes out to meet him and makes the same accusation: “If you had been here, our brother would not have died.” Even the people who had come to grieve with Mary and Martha said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man kept this man from dying?” 

And that seems like a fair assessment of the situation, I think. They had sent word to Jesus before Lazarus had died and he didn’t come. Now Lazarus was dead and there was no hope. Sure, Martha says, we believe that Lazarus will rise again in the resurrection in the last day. But that doesn’t take away the sting of loss right now. But Jesus says to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, ²⁶and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” 

And then he proves it. Jesus proves that there is no place so dark, so disgusting, so far gone that he cannot call us by name, and say, “Come out!” 

There is a lot of darkness, a lot of death, too much of it, today. 

Just in the past few weeks we have come face to face with too much death. 

Three people were killed at a video game tournament in downtown Jacksonville last month.

Six people were shot near a laundromat not too far from my husband’s church last week. 

Eleven people were murdered in a Pittsburg synagogue last week. 

After a murderer tried getting into a Black church to kill those inside, he walked to the nearby grocery store and killed two people there instead. 

Two people were killed and 5 more were injured in a shooting at a yoga studio in Tallahassee this week. 

As we speak, roughly 3,500 Central and South American refugees — about 2,300 of whom are children— are traveling out of a situation of death into what they hope is life and safety.

My dear friends, death is the enemy. We know this to be true in the deepest parts of our hearts, but we don’t often name it. Death’s extended family— sin, despair, brokenness, and division— are also the enemy. But it is death that is a threat to our sense of purpose, imagination, and value. 

Death has always been the enemy. It was the enemy back in the time of Isaiah. Death was the enemy in Jesus’ time, and death is the enemy today. And sometimes, especially on this All Saints’ Sunday, it seems as if death is winning. Just as Mary and Martha mourned for the coming Jesus, believing he was too late to save their brother, we often cry out to God, saying, “if only you had been here, if only you had answered our prayers, our loved ones would not have died.”

But I am here to bring you good new of great joy, dear friends. It is not too late. In fact, we live on this side of the resurrection. Jesus has already conquered death and the grave. It no longer binds us. Jesus has met us in our grief, called us by name, and said, “COME OUT.” 

Come out of death. Come out of despair. Come out of fear. Come out of the darkness. Come out of the grave. Come out of hatred. Come out of brokenness. 

Child of God, come out! 

It’s a beautiful thing, being called out of the grave and into life. Because that is truly what we are made for— life. Life in Christ. 

That is the miracle that we witness this morning and as we remember our friends and family who died before us. That there is life on both sides of the grave. It doesn’t take away the sting and stench of death— death is, indeed, the enemy. But Jesus has overcome it for our sake. For our sake he was crucified, died, and was buried. 

It is in our baptism that we are called into life, out of the grave. Not just to save us from hell. No, Jesus saved us by his death so that we might be resurrected with him into service for one another. 

You see, Jesus begins this miracle by calling Lazarus out of the tomb. But he invites the community to complete the miracle. 

When Lazarus comes out of the tomb, he is still bound by grave cloths. He is still tangled up in the nastiness of sin and death. But Jesus says to the community, “unbind him and set him free.” 

Jesus has already conquered death, but it is up to us, the community, to continue that work and unbind one another and set each other free. This is holy work. This is saintly work. The life of the saints is now. The life of saints is that which we witness. Lives lived as saints is what we are called to do and to be. 

In the wake of the terrorist attack on Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg, the Jewish community came together and asked for something specific from their friends and family. They asked for light. They asked that their loved ones’ memories be a blessing. They asked that people perform mitzvahs, or acts of kindness. Because in the midst of hatred, fear, and death, our Jewish siblings know that life prevails, life wins. 

We must believe that loving our neighbors is never for the sake of eternal life after death, but always because it is a means by which death itself is overcome here and now. Loving our neighbor as ourself is the means by which we fight off death every day and we are able to see the saint in all. Without this mandate, this principle, we allow death to infringe on our lives prematurely. We allow it to enslave us and keep us bound. 

So, on this day, All Saints’ Sunday, we remember those who have joined the church triumphant this past year. We thank God for their lives and their witness to the glory of God. But we must also remember our role as the church militant. The church that continues to struggle against the grip and fear of death, even as we proclaim the resurrection. Because it is only through this struggle against death and all of its relatives— fear, anger, division, and apathy— that we can truly experience life.

_________

This sermon was preached at Hope Lutheran Church in Satsuma, Florida on November 4, 2018.