No more crying, Lord
Sermon for All Saints Day, year B
Bible reading: John 11:32–44
In my office in Bethlehem House I have some of the most important aids a Lutheran Pastor can have for ministering to God’s saints. The first is the Bible through which God tells us the Good News of what he has done for us all through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through the Bible God tells us that through Jesus our sins are forgiven, and we are made saints … we are saved by grace, through faith, as a pure gift of God, and not due to anything we have done.
The second most important aid for ministry I have in my office is the communion set. Through the bread and wine it contains, God gives his saints the body and blood of Jesus to forgive their sins, and feed their faith, so they can go out into the world to face all the battles of following Jesus in a world that is mostly opposed to God and his ways.
The third most important aid for ministry in my office is the box of tissues. I was never taught about tissues at seminary, and so I had to learn this ministry tool by myself, and it took me about 35 years. And though I believe with the seminary and the teaching of the church that the Word and Sacrament are the most important aids to ministry, or means of grace, most often I first turn to the box of tissues.
We live in a world of weeping. Turn on the news any night and you will see a litany of tears - enough to fill our own eyes with tears. We walk through a ‘veil of tears’, a valley of tears, the valley of the shadow of death
, as Psalm 23 reminds us. How keenly we have felt that again this past year, as some of us walked that valley of tears as we said goodbye to those we loved the most, and others of us have attended their funerals, or sat with the dying or their loved ones.
There is an important place for tissues in the ministry of the church. Tissues acknowledge the brokenness and pain and suffering the world has experienced ever since it turned from the Lord and giver of life in unbelief and disobedience. Tears are the inevitable result of a sinful world. Whether it’s the tears of loneliness of a political leader, or the pain of broken relationships, or the fears of financial collapse, tears are the sign of a world gone wrong. Whether it is the tears of appealing boatloads of refugees, or the cries of hungry children, or the weeping of someone confessing grievous sins, tears are always the signs of sin, and the known or unknown cry for a Saviour from sin.
Somebody has said: ‘It is the church’s calling to be a safe place for those who cry.’
Vincent cried out to me and our church in a time of great need when his whole world was collapsing. We helped him, and I helped him for the next 10 years. Sometimes he had lost his wallet. Sometimes he’d been beaten. Sometimes he was in hospital. Sometimes he was hungry. Sometimes he was in the Psych unit. I remember my last contact with him. He was in tears. He said: ‘David, you are the only friend I have.’
Those words still haunt me from time to time. Vincent knew the church and the pastor were a safe place to cry.
Do you know that? In every pew sits a broken heart.
And what better place to sit, and what better way to express the pain of life than in tears, for God has more to offer than tissues. Through his Word of Good News and Sacrament of healing he brings hope, and victory. Gregory of Nyssa said: tears are blood from the wounds of the soul
, and when we spill them out to God he heals us with the wounds and blood of his cross.
Jesus is not afraid of tears. He deliberately meets the weeping widow on the way to the cemetery, tells her not to weep, and raises her son to life. He welcomes the weeping woman washing his feet with her tears, and assures her: your faith has saved you; go in peace.
Jesus welcomes the weeping Mary at the death of her brother, Lazarus, and in total solidarity with her: Jesus wept.
‘He wept not for the dead but for the living. He wept not for the one in the cave of death but for those in the cave of fear. He wept for those who, though free, were prisoners, held captive by their fear of death.’
—Max Lucado, Six Hours One Friday
Jesus weeps for all those who cannot believe or will not believe in him. Jesus weeps, like he wept over rebellious Jerusalem, for all those who reject him when he comes and offers them hope and forgiveness, and wholeness in the midst of this broken world.
Then he asked them to move the stone, and he called out to the four days dead corpse: Lazarus, come out! The dead man came out.
Death is no obstacle to Jesus, nor are decaying or cremated bodies, nor are stones rolled and sealed over tombs.
She was famous and she was an unbeliever and she left strict instructions that her tomb was to be sealed with a slab of granite, fastened to heavy stones with iron clamps, with an inscription to read: This burial place, purchased to all eternity, must never be opened.
But a small birch tree had others plans and over the years it forced its roots into the tomb and raised the granite slab with the defiant words of unbelief written on it.
Nothing can stand in the way of the Word of God. One little Word can fell him, we sang last week to celebrate God’s great saving work through Jesus Christ. Today one little word raises Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus, come out!
And Lazarus appears, alive.
He will swallow up death forever,
says Isaiah, and then adds: The Lord has spoken.
Tissues help, but only the Word of the Lord can raise people from the dead. And the Lord has spoken. Jesus has been raised, and Jesus says: I am the resurrection and the life; all who believe in me will live, even though they die.
The saints are those who live and die believing in the resurrection. Because they believe in the resurrection they are prepared to face all the pain and suffering that an unbelieving world can inflict. Because the saints believe in the resurrection of Christ, and through him their own, they are prepared to live for Jesus, and witness to Jesus, and confess and preach and teach Jesus to the ends of the earth, even if it leads to suffering and death.
That’s why Polycarp, the great bishop of Smyrna, was prepared to face the beasts and the fire and the executioner, and make his bold confession: 86 years have I served the Lord Jesus Christ, and he never once wronged me. How can I blaspheme my King who has saved me?
Legend says that so much blood flowed from the wound inflicted by the executioner that it put out the fire.
As a follower of Jesus Christ who died and rose for you, you can face whatever comes your way in this valley of tears. The body and blood of Christ wipe away all your sins, and the resurrection of Christ wipes away all your tears. There will still be tears on this earth. There will still be tissues. But the time is coming when:
the Sovereign Lord will swallow up death forever, and will wipe away the tears from all faces … There will be a new heaven and a new earth … God will live with his people, and wipe away every tear from their eyes … The Lord has spoken.
This is most certainly true.
Amen.