Today is the festival of All Saints. On this day, we remember in worship those who have died in the year since our last All Saints gathering. Our remembering is done with clear eyes - sainthood, here, is not about perfection, and is not bestowed by virtue of one’s good deeds while on earth. Instead, we are saints because God has made us so in the waters of baptism. Called by name, forgiven, and made holy, we rejoice that we are joined to God and to one another. Together, we give thanks for God’s promises - that love, and mercy, and forgiveness are for us; that death is not the end; that Jesus brings about salvation, and resurrection, and life; and that we are not alone.
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| Photo by Cathy Mü on Unsplash |
Today’s readings are filled with beautiful imagery of the future that awaits us. God promises a feast of rich food for all people, and a coming day when death, and tears, and mourning, and crying, and pain will be no more.
Martha, sister of Lazarus, knows these promises well. In the verses leading up to today’s Gospel reading, it is Martha who meets Jesus on the road. In response to Jesus’s statement that her brother will rise again, Martha says, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
In the midst of grief and pain, we cling to promises about the future, but they only go so far in providing comfort and care. Yes, we know about what is to come, but what about now? Is there also good news for the grieving here and now?
Yes - a resounding yes. The good news for those who grieve is not just resurrection on the last day, but also the strength and promise of God’s presence with us now. This presence is made known in many ways, but perhaps most powerfully through the gift of one another.
At the end of the season one finale of the show Ted Lasso, the Richmond soccer team is gathered in the locker room after a bitter loss, the final game of the season. It is a loss which will result in the team being relegated to a lower league - which means a loss of prestige, and revenue, and the risk of the players being separated and sent to other teams.
Gazing around the locker room, where the players sit silently, heads down in grief, anger, and regret, Coach Lasso speaks. He celebrates the team’s hard work, highlighting some of the shining moments from the game, and then says, “Now look - this is a sad moment here, for all of us. There ain’t nothing I can say, standing in front of you now, that can take that away. But please - do me this favor, will ya? Lift your heads up, look around this locker room. Look at everybody else in here. I want you to be grateful that you’re going through this sad moment with all these other folks. Because, I promise you, there is something worse out there than being sad. And that is being alone and being sad. Ain’t nobody in this room alone.”
In the midst of our sadness and grief, one of God’s promises for the here and now is that we are not alone. We are not alone, because God will never leave us or forsake us. We are not alone, because we belong to the Body of Christ, which is the gathering of the saints of all times and places who have been washed in the waters of baptism. We are not alone, because God has given us one another. However imperfect it may be, we are a community. We’re in this together. We worship, and serve, and learn together. We comfort and care for one another. We ask for forgiveness and cling to hope and believe for one another when our own hearts are weak and lost.
Gathered in community, we find space to express our emotions however they come - in weeping, in anger, in questions, in confusion, and in disbelief. In the Gospel story, Mary and Martha’s friends and neighbors are there with them, weeping together. Seeing them, even Jesus is “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” He begins to weep, too. While some of those gathered see this and express compassion, others turn to questions, and accusations. “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” There is room for this expression of grief, too.
Gathered in community, we witness the glory of God. Jesus brings life, healing, and wholeness into places of death, grief, and decay. It doesn't always look the way we expect it to look, or the way we wish it would look. But the glory of God is made visible even here and now. We witness God's glory in acts of love and service, in courage and defiant hope, in grief and in joy.
Gathered in community, we answer the call to participate in God’s work of liberation and resurrection. When Lazarus emerges from the tomb, stench and strips of cloth clinging to him, Jesus calls those gathered to join in re-connecting Lazarus to the community. “Unbind him, and let him go,” Jesus says to them. We, too, are called to this work of liberation, grace, and love.
It is in the community, among one another, that we believe. It is in the community, among one another, that we see the glory of God, just as Jesus said. Surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses, the communion of the saints, we experience God’s presence and are reminded again that not one of us is alone. Together, we await that day when tears are wiped away, death is no more, and we are all gathered around the great heavenly feast.
In the meantime, we comfort one another in our grief, cling to God’s everlasting promises, and gather in hope around this table for a foretaste of the feast to come. Nourished by Jesus’s presence in bread and wine, we are reminded in words and actions that God is with us and for us, no matter what. In the midst of grief or confusion, anger or uncertainty, wonder or joy, not one of us is alone.
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