All Saints' Day

All Saints Day Sermon , Robert P. Wadley

Nov. 4, 2012 – 8:00 AM

Today we celebrate All Saints Day.  Actually, in the liturgical calendar, All Saints Day was November 1^st, followed on November 2^nd by All Souls Day.  On All Saints Day, we honor all the saints, both known and unknown, while on All Souls Day we remember the faithful departed.  To me it seems we tend to combine the two into one, maybe because we're not exactly sure how to define a saint.  In the Methodist Church, the word “saints” refers to all Christians and therefore, on All Saints Day, the “Church”, meaning all members living and dead, are honored and remembered.  My brother-in-law, who is a Methodist pastor in Florida, is quick to point out it's a good thing I'm not a Methodist; they would have to reconsider their definition of a saint.

Our readings today are all about life and death, and about God being with us, as we live and through death to life again.  We began with the Wisdom of Solomon, where we read, “Those who trust in him will understand truth, and the faithful will abide with him in love, because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones, and he watches over his elect.”  We followed that with an affirmation in the Psalms, “They shall receive a blessing from the Lord and a just reward from the God of their salvation.”  And then, this from Revelation:  “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” (we need to pause here to think about that statement; God's home is here, not just here in our church, but here everywhere; God is living in our midst). And then, finally, this amazing declaration.  “He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  Death will be no more.”  

Well, we all know that life as we experience it, here on this earth, does end, so when we read that God has swallowed up death forever and that death will be no more, obviously there must be a deeper meaning.  Eight years ago I had a triple by-pass operation.  I remember lying in bed the day following the surgery and thinking about what they had done and realizing that life was more than just this physical body.  They had removed my heart from my body and connected it to a machine to keep it pumping while they replaced small sections of my arteries and then had put my heart back inside me.  For the first time in my life, I understood that this body is a machine, an elaborate machine given to me by God, but, nevertheless, just a machine.  My life was so much more.  My life is the spirit of God within me, what we call our soul.   

So, how can we accept that “death will be no more?”  We'll come back to that, but, first, maybe it would be helpful to our understanding if we looked at our Gospel reading for today, the story of the raising of Lazarus.  Actually, we need to go back and read John, Chapter 11 from the beginning to get the full story.  We all know the story, or do we?  There are so many little details in it that reveal so much about who Jesus was.  First, Lazarus, Mary and Martha were Jesus' friends and he loved them.  That is important because having friends is something only a human Jesus could do.   So, the sisters, Mary and Martha, send for Jesus to come heal their brother, Lazarus.  Did they know who Jesus really was?  If so, did they believe he had to be physically with Lazarus in order to heal him?  If he was truly the Son of God, couldn't he have healed Lazarus immediately without having to travel to Bethany, apparently a two day trip from where Jesus was when he received their message?  Then, if Lazarus was such a dear friend, why did Jesus delay two days before starting his journey?  So, after staying in the same place two days longer, he tells the disciples he is going and they remind him how dangerous it is for him to return to Judea.  He was a wanted man, in effect, a fugitive.  Finally, Jesus “told them plainly, Lazarus is dead; and for your sake I am glad that I was not there; it will help you to believe, to trust and rely on Me.”  If you had been there and had heard Jesus say those words, what would you have thought?  Most likely, you would have been wondering, “What in the world is he talking about?  How can Lazarus' death help us believe and trust in Jesus?”  

Two days later, Jesus arrives at Bethany and is greeted by Martha, who says to him, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  But then she says, “And even now I know that whatever You ask from God He will grant it to You.”  She had faith, but death, as we know it, is irreversible, so what she was really saying was, “Jesus, I just wish you had gotten here in time to save my brother Lazarus.”  Then Jesus tells her, “Your brother shall rise again.”  And she replies, “Yes, I know that he will rise at the resurrection in the last day.”  And then, one of the best known verses in the Bible: Jesus says to her, “I am the Resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  And now, I have finally arrived at our reading for today.  As her sister before her, Mary says to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  And she and the people with her were weeping.  Jesus was deeply moved and he asked, “Where have you laid him?”  They said, “Lord, come and see.”  And then, the shortest verse in the King James version of the Bible, “Jesus wept.”  Jesus, the man, was deeply moved and mourned the death of his friend, but what probably moved him even more was seeing how sad and inconsolable Mary and the others were.   Some of the people there said, “He has worked miracles, could not he kept this man from dying?  You know the rest.  Jesus tells them to take away the stone.  They are shocked!  Lazarus has been dead four days and his body has already begun to decay and there is a stench..  But Jesus is undeterred and cries out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”  And, he does, he was dead, but now he lives.  

By now, you are probably wondering, why did I spend so much time going over this story.  We've heard it many times before.  Well, because it is one of, if not the most dramatic story in the Bible and it not only foreshadows Jesus' resurrection, it explains everything.  It is the answer to the question I posed  awhile ago, namely, how can we believe that death has been conquered?  There is a short story by a Russian writer named Leonid Andreyev which touches on the answer.  In the story, Andreyev pictures Lazarus has having been traumatized by having been dead for four days.  Lazarus is being feted at a dinner when one of the guests says, “Why do you not tell us what happened while you were dead?”  Everyone grew silent, startled by the question.  They looked at him, anxiously awaiting his answer.  But Lazarus kept silence.  He was asked again , “What happened while you were dead?  Is it so terrible there?”  But, again, Lazarus didn't answer.  I can imagine myself being so curious I would be the guest asking that question.  I'm sure all of us would like to sit down with Lazarus and get him to tell us what it was like those four days.  However, death is not what this is about; it is about life.  Later in the story, there is an exchange between Lazarus and Emperor Augustus.  Even though he knows who Lazarus is, Augustus asks, “Who are you?”  Lazarus answers, “I was dead.”  Augustus says, “I had heard that.  But, who are you now?”  Lazarus repeats, in a tone of weary apathy, “I was dead.”  Augustus replies,  “Listen to me stranger, my realm is the realm of life, my people are of the living, not of the dead.”

That is us.  We are of the living.  Not just living here and now physically, but we live  spiritually.  And that is what the Lazarus story is about.  That is the answer.  That is how death has been overcome and is no more.  God has temporarily placed our living souls in these bodies.  It's as if He has leased them to us until we return to be with Him.  Our bodies will die; our souls do not die.  So, today we can celebrate the saints, those still living in their earthly bodies and those others who are still living, but who have departed from their earthly bodies.  Thanks be to God for all of them and thanks be to God that He sent Jesus to “wipe every tear from our eyes.”