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Sermon for All Saints Sunday – November 3, 2024
Isaiah 25:6-9, Revelation 21:1-6a, John 11:32-44
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Death stinks.
In our modern world it is blessedly rare that this is a literal experience, but no matter how hygienic we might be and no matter how quickly bodies are whisked away, death still stinks. Grief tends to hang in the air for a long time afterwards. There is an unpleasant heaviness which clings to people. The overwhelming emotions floating around can be so overpowering that people can hardly see straight.
There may well be moments of peace when death draws near. There are sometimes beautiful goodbyes and deeply touching expressions of faith and hope and love and care in a person’s final moments. But even under the best of circumstances, death stinks. It stinks because it robs us of the people we love. It stinks because it leaves an aching absence in our lives that lingers and lingers and lingers.
Even Jesus thought that death stinks. When he saw his dear friend Mary weeping after her brother died, Jesus was “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” Jesus began to weep too. When he came to the tomb that Lazarus had been laid in, he was again greatly disturbed. While John’s gospel usually presents us with a more stoic Jesus, even with John’s high Christology, his emphasis on Jesus’ divinity, he doesn’t hesitate to show us the raw human emotions Jesus experienced at the death of his friend. Tears flowed. He felt this terrible loss in his gut. He was racked with grief, with sorrow, with anger even. Jesus would completely agree – death stinks.
In the case of Lazarus, the stench was quite literal, of course. When Jesus went to his tomb and demanded that the stone be rolled away, the ever-practical Martha objected because of the odor which was sure to burn their nostrils if they were to crack that seal. But Jesus said to Martha, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” In other words: “Trust me, Martha.” “Trust me,” Jesus said.
So they took away the stone. And once the tomb was opened, after offering a prayer up to the Father, Jesus cried out with a loud voice. He shouted into the tomb: “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus came out.
The takeaway? Death stinks, but it doesn’t deter Jesus. Jesus enters the stink with a word that is more powerful than death. Christ comes to the tomb with a voice that has the power to raise people up. When your name is on Jesus’ lips it means there is life beyond death, it means the grave cannot hold you, it means death does not have the last word. Death stinks, but when we put our trust in Christ and his word, we can be sure that we will see the glory of God.
All Saints Sunday is a somber day. It is a widespread tradition in the Christian church for congregations to remember their members who have died in the past year. We’re doing this today, of course, as we remember Hal, David, Walt, Karola, and Kyle, with special prayers this morning. There will also be a time of silence during those prayers when we can remember and give thanks for the many other saints in our lives, whether they’ve been gone for two years or twenty. And so it is a time of somber reflection. It is a time when that ache of absence can begin to throb with renewed intensity. It is a time when we confront the reality of death. It can be a Sunday on which we are painfully reminded of how much it stinks.
But just as our Lord Jesus spoke into the stench of Lazarus’ tomb, so too does he speak to us. Today God gives us a word that cuts through the heaviness hanging in the air and brings life.
Sometimes it is hard to hear this word when grief is especially raw. I remember visiting a gentleman a few weeks after his wife had died, and towards the end of our visit he asked me for a copy of the sermon I delivered at her funeral. While he had no reason to feel guilty about this, he sheepishly admitted that he didn’t remember a single word I said at the service. At the time he was too numb to hear it. He was still in shock. His grief was too overwhelming. This is a very common experience, and so All Saints Sunday gives us an opportunity to listen to Christ’s life-giving word at a time when we are perhaps more likely to actually hear it. While there is plenty of grief in this sanctuary today, perhaps this Sunday provides an opening for God’s promises to break through in a way they haven’t before.
First, in our reading from Isaiah God promises a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines. While God’s people are feasting on these rich foods, the Lord himself is dining on something different. The Lord, Isaiah says, will swallow up death forever! What we have here is a glimpse of the great exchange that Christ has brought about in his own death and resurrection. By experiencing death himself, Jesus has swallowed it up. He has defeated it. What we get is the feast! What we get is life! The Lord’s Supper is an embodiment of this feast. Jesus gives us his body and blood, and we get forgiveness, life, and salvation. Jesus swallows death and we swallow life! It is through this feast, Isaiah tells us, that God begins to wipe away the tears from all faces.
Over the last several days I’ve served the Lord’s Supper in the kitchens and living rooms of people who are fighting for their lives, people whose grip on life is starting to slip, or is at least seriously threatened. Even through the furrowed brows and teary eyes of the gravely ill and their loved ones, there is a peace that is found in sharing in this feast of rich food. Christ’s broken body and shed blood provide an assurance that no matter how near death may be, Jesus already swallowed it, and as we swallow him, we are promised life with him. And so, while tears are never bad or wrong, God begins to wipe them away with this comforting promise.
As we share the Lord’s Supper here in the sanctuary, this feast of rich food becomes the place where the veil between heaven and earth is particularly thin. As we say in the communion liturgy, “with the church on earth and the hosts of heaven.” As our voices join the heavenly chorus in singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” death is not quite as deep a chasm as we share in communion with all the saints through Christ. Many people go to the graves of their loved ones to feel close to them after they’re gone. That’s fine, but it is here at this table that you are particularly close to them.
And then there is our reading from Revelation. Here we are given a glimpse of the coming kingdom, the new Jerusalem, where death will be no more. Just as there was a loud voice at Lazarus’ tomb, there is another one here! From the throne, the Lord Jesus uses a loud voice to say, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will be with them; 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.”
Here we are promised that God dwells with mortals – that is to say, with people who die! Here we are promised a future where every tear will be wiped away at last, a future where death will be no more. We are promised a new Jerusalem where grief and sorrow are gone forever and we will bask in the presence of Christ and all whom he has called to himself.
“See, I am making all things new,” Jesus says. Also, he says: “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Remember how he told Martha to trust him? Now he is saying the same thing to you. “Trust me!” he says. “Trust these words, for they are trustworthy and true!” “Trust me, and you will see the glory of God!”
Death stinks, but it isn’t quite as pungent when we hear and trust in these words, these promises.
Death stinks, but there is a savior who is not repelled by it, a savior who enters into it with a word that has the power to call us into life with him. He comes with a voice that cuts through the heaviness. He comes to call us by name. Your name has already been on his lips when he claimed you as his own in Holy Baptism. Your name will be on his lips again when you hear his voice calling you out of death and into the new Jerusalem.
In the meantime, he speaks to you now to begin to wipe those tears away, bringing you healing, hope, and peace. He comes to you now to fill those aching absences with his loving presence. He gives you his word today so that you would believe, and in believing, you would see the glory of God.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church