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John 11:32-48
All Saints Day 11/1/2015
St. Alban’s Annandale
The Rev. Dr. Rosemary Beales
We approached the stone doorway with trepidation. Narrow and short,
the opening would require the tallest among us to stoop.
Those with any tendency to claustrophobia had been warned to stay behind.
The rest of us had to proceed just a few at a time through the doorway
and into a cramped space that reflected little of the glaringly bright day outside.
A few more steps and we faced a square cut into the stone floor – a square so small we
were glad we hadn’t eaten more lunch. One by one, we stepped through the hole and
entered a vertical shaft by a steep, slippery staircase carved into the stone.
At the bottom of the hole, there was barely room to stand upright.
But standing upright was never the point of this place.
We were inside a tomb, the tomb of Lazarus.
This past July I took a pilgrimage to St. George’s College in Jerusalem, to experience a
course called “The Palestine of Jesus.” I say “experience” because, unlike most courses,
we weren’t sitting in a lecture hall taking notes. Instead we visited all the significant sites
in the story of Jesus — including the one in the gospel of John today.
Right at the middle of his gospel, John sets this story: a story of loss, a story of grief, and,
beyond all reason, a story of wild and joyful hope. It is the story we most need on this All
Saints Day, when we ponder the past in the memories of those we’ve loved and lost,
and celebrate the future in the baptisms of Darius, Victor, and Elizabeth.
The gospel story begins in anguish: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not
have died!” Mary of Bethany’s cry echoes that of her sister Martha, a few verses before
our passage. You may recall another story in which Mary and Martha argued over
household chores, but in their grief and deep disappointment with Jesus, they are united.
How it must have hurt to wait for him to come to their brother, to take him by the hand
and lift him from his bed of pain. How it must have torn their hearts out to consign their
beloved to that narrow door, that open hole, that deep down darkness.
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And NOW comes Jesus, when it is too late. He weeps, for their sorrow, and perhaps for
the sorrow of all across the centuries – even ours – who bear bereavement. But it is too
late. The sisters know it, their neighbors and fellow mourners know it, even the disciples
know it. Everyone knows it—except Jesus.
“Take away the stone!” Deep within the earth, was there a rumble, a trembling? Despite
Martha’s warning – “Lord, it’s been four days!” – Jesus insists. “Do you want to see the
glory of God -- or not?” So the stone is rolled back, and uniting with the full force of his
Father’s love, praying for the sake of the crowd, Jesus calls with a loud voice:
LAZARUS, COME OUT!
* * *
I stood in the tomb where Lazarus lay — not just on my pilgrimage to Bethany,
but in my life. My details don’t matter right now, because maybe you’ve stood there, too.
Maybe you’ve had a moment, or a season, or a year, when you sat in deep darkness, with
death in your soul. Maybe you’ve felt useless, or abandoned, or hopeless, or afraid. And
maybe you’ve heard Jesus stand at your door and cry,
LAZARUS, COME OUT!
And the dead man – or woman, or teenager – came out, still bound, still uncertain, still
caught between life and death, and heard those next beautiful, terrible words:
UNBIND HIM, AND LET HIM GO.
Beautiful, because these words promise life to us.
Terrible, because they require us to live.
THIS is what it means to be set free. This is the new life that Jesus gave to Lazarus, the
new life he gives to you and me. This is the new life that Darius, Victor, and Elizabeth
receive today. They are about to make promises, the promises each of us has made in our
own baptism, and will renew today. Usually, I love to talk about the promises we make.
But today, with this gospel lighting our way, I want to talk about the promises God makes
to US in baptism.
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God promises us that we have a Savior named Jesus Christ, in whose grace and love we
can put our whole trust. God promises that we have a holy and life-giving Spirit to buoy
us up as life’s sorrows and confusions billow about us. God promises that whatever sin or
shame or sorrow mars the perfect YOU he created, Jesus will not give up on you.
Jesus will stand at your door, calling “COME OUT,” unbinding whatever holds you back
and setting you FREE.
FREE is the way we live as baptized people.
Oh, most of us falter, and fail, and forget sometimes.
But we have a word for people who don’t -- or who at least
falter and fail and forget less than the rest of us;
the ones who live without fear,
in thanksgiving
for all that God, in Jesus, has done for them.
We have a word for those people, and the word is Saint.
Some Saints have lived so FREE that the whole Church recognizes them, Saints with a
capital S like Francis of Assisi, or Alban of Britain, or Rose of Lima, or Peter and Paul
and Matthew and Mary. Other Saints are those only we know are in heaven, like my
mother and maybe yours, and all those whose memory still sits in these pews.
And then there are “all the saints still striving,”1
those of us still laboring to keep the baptismal promises we made
BECAUSE we thank God for the promises God makes to us.
Living in thanksgiving makes us a Eucharistic people, which is what the word means.
We live in thanksgiving for the One who sets us free
and continues to call us out, to unbind us, and to let us go.
We live in thanksgiving for the One who calls us,
each and every one of us,
to be Saints.
Amen
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1982 hymnal, Number 231-232