On November 3/4, 2018, we celebrated the festival of All Saints Day. The texts for this weekend are Revelation 21:1-6a, Isaiah 25:6-9, and John 11:32-44. I was inspired this week by two of the God Pause email devotionals from Rev. Betsy Dart, here and here.
One of my pet peeves is when you see a movie trailer and it gives away the movie’s whole plot. Good movie previews tease you just enough to get you interested in seeing the whole movie; they don’t spoil the entire plot for you.
In John’s Gospel, this story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is a sneak peek into the future for all of us. We get a preview of both Jesus’ future and of our own.
We don’t get the whole plot, but we peek ahead far enough to learn that death is not the final end it seems to be, at least not when Jesus is around.
Part of why the Bible leaves us lots of room for imagining and wondering, I suspect, is that eternal life in heaven is just not something we can fully grasp. I think it helps to ask, “What’s the best thing you can imagine?” Today’s readings give us a bunch of preview images hinting at the reality we’ll experience one day.
In Isaiah, it’s food. Imagine the best banquet you’ve ever had. In a society where meat is something expensive to splurge on, they imagine rich food filled with marrow, and the best, most expensive well-aged wines.
Isaiah pictures this feast on the mountain of the Lord, in God’s presence. And it’s not just the people of Israel; it’s everyone. All peoples. It’s the world as God meant it to be, where no one is in need, no one is fighting or grieving or disgraced. Psalm 23 uses a similar image of a table prepared by God and an overflowing cup.
In Revelation, it’s a wedding, with God and creation united forever. The forces of chaos are defeated, so the sea, the place of terror, is no more.
“What is the best thing you can imagine?”
In our popular imagination, it’s clouds, resting, leisure, resting on clouds forever listening to beautiful music from harps. Jesus describes heaven in John 14 as his Father’s house where there are many rooms, and a place prepared for us, a place where you are not excluded, but where you belong, where you are expected. In Revelation 21, the best thing imaginable includes streets paved with gold, and precious jewels decorating all the buildings.
In both Revelation and Isaiah, death is defeated. Mourning, crying, and pain are no more. God wipes away all tears. And the ultimate hope, the best thing any follower of God can imagine comes to fruition: The home of God is among mortals. God lives with God’s people.
“This is our God; we have waited for him so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
We can’t fully explain what happens after death, because no one comes back afterwards. I think the most frustrating part of this Gospel reading is that apparently no one asked Lazarus what he experienced during death. He didn’t just have a quick near-death experience; he was really solidly dead, long enough for concern about his body decomposing. Here’s someone who has experienced death, and no one asks him what it was like?
Although, if we were somehow given a preview of the afterlife, of heaven, we wouldn’t be able to grasp it or articulate it anyway. All we can do is rely on these glimpses, these little snippets of language reaching for a way to explain the unexplainable. We can only imagine what it will be like to be in God’s presence, to be with Jesus forever, outside time. Trying to comprehend eternity gives me a headache.
The Bible isn’t nearly as clear as I wish on details like when is the final judgment, can we look in on loved ones after we die or are we just asleep until the final judgment, what does a resurrection body look like, or any of those things that seem so important to know.
Jesus says, “Today, you will be with me in paradise” and tells a parable about a dead man watching his family. The prophet Daniel talks about those who sleep in the dust rising at the end of time for judgment. We just don’t know what death looks like
What the Bible is clear on is that after death, we are with Jesus. Those who have died rest in the hands of God, in the merciful love of the one who gave his life for them and for us. That’s better than the best we can imagine.
Even though we cannot fully understand it, even though without faith it doesn’t make any sense, because of this promise, All Saints Day is a celebration.
Today, we remember those saints who have died in the last year, and we rejoice that they are now free from the pain and the suffering and the cares of this world. We rejoice that God has wiped away their tears and one day, we will join with them in praising God together forever.
We rejoice for the time we had with them, and we rejoice that their life continues in Christ, that they are part of the great cloud of witnesses of the church triumphant. Death does not get the last word, for as Lazarus testifies, Jesus has the power to defeat death, to turn it into life.
This hope is not just for the great saints, for martyrs or missionaries or super-Christians who gave away everything or were super faithful. This hope is for all of us.
Paul refers to all the believers in churches as “saints.” Saints are holy people, but they don’t become holy through their efforts or the good things they do, but by being washed by God in the waters of Holy Baptism and claimed by the Holy Spirit. Everyone who’s baptized is a saint. It’s God’s work, not ours.
We need that promise to hold on to, not just to think about how we die, but for the strength to get through each day of life. In the midst of this broken world of shootings and cancer and political venom and fear, we cling to the promise that this world is not all there is.
This confident hope sets us free to engage in this world, to shine Jesus’ light to our neighbors and share that this hope is for them too, for all nations and all peoples. We believe in a God of resurrection.
In a few minutes, we will speak the names of those in our congregation who have died this last year, and we will light a candle in memory of each one, recognizing the light they have brought to our lives and the light of Christ which continues to shine on them.
In recognizing all the saints who have died, we celebrate that the Church includes not merely those we can see and touch; Christ’s Body includes the Church Triumphant—those who have died and are now with Jesus forever.
Following the recognition of those saints in our congregation, we’ll also have a time where you are invite you to come up and light a candle to give thanks to God for other saints you remember.
Let us pray.
Gracious God, you claim each of us in the waters of baptism, and you give us eternal life in your kingdom. Thank you for the examples of faith you have given us through all your saints, our brothers and sisters in Christ. Comfort us in our grief, and give us faith to trust your promises of eternal life through Jesus Christ, in whose sacred name we pray.
Amen