As you can see by our beautifully decorated nave we had a celebration yesterday
here at St. Andrew’s. We celebrated Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead.
What you see in the windows and around the altar here are ofrendas. Ofrendas are
thoughtful and creative offerings to remember and honor those who have died. It is
a day to remember that we who are alive are connected, we are in communion with
our loved ones who have died.
If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to take a closer look at the ofrendas.
It is no accident whatsoever, of course that All Saints Day and Dia de los Muertos
share a date on the calendar, they are related. Because on All Saints Day we also
celebrate and remember that we who are alive are connected, we are in communion
with our loved ones and all the other saints who have gone before us and are now
in the direct presence of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is truly a beautiful and a necessary celebration. Why is it necessary? Because we
are after all still talking about death here.
Anyone who ever woke up and had to remember and realize once again that they
can no longer see, hear, and hold their beloved in this life, knows that death is
brutal. And if you haven’t yet, you will. None of us can escape grieving for a loved
one any more than we can avoid dying ourselves. This reality is, well, hard to live
with, isn’t it?
And that is why this celebration is necessary for us all. We can’t outrun this reality,
but we can accept it.
We might even find a shy glimpse of joy through the tears of our grief.
There are only three incidents of Jesus crying in our scriptures. He cries for the fate
of Jerusalem. He cries out to His Father in the garden of Gethsemane. And he cries
at the tomb of Lazarus.
Lazarus is the brother of Martha and Mary, and these three siblings share a close
friendship with Jesus. Our story begins with the tears of Mary as she kneels by
Jesus’ feet. She says: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have
died." If.
That little word, if, can be awfully hurtful to a grieving soul.
If we had caught this disease sooner. If she had not been late, she would not have
been on that bus. If I had been there. If. Of course, Mary cries. Death is
devastating. Everyone in her community is crying and mourning. What else can we
do in our grief?
And because they are such close friends, Mary’s tears disturb Jesus and move him
deeply the Gospel tells us. In other translations it reads that Jesus is not so much
disturbed but angry actually. Why is He angry?
And then, disturbed or angry, when the people are showing him where Lazarus is
laid to rest, Jesus cries. Why does He cry?
At Lazarus’ tomb, Martha’s words make it clear that the time for healing Lazarus
has passed. Her beloved brother has started to decompose, there is a stench. The
stench of death.
And for these words, Jesus reprimands Martha. "Did I not tell you that if you
believed, you would see the glory of God?" Why?
Why is Jesus angry about Mary’s tears? Why does He cry? Why does He berate
Martha?
Mary says that Lazarus is dead because Jesus was not there to heal him. The
grieving community shows Him where Lazarus’ tomb is. Martha is fretting about
the stench of death. There is a thought, a belief, a thread that weaves through these
three encounters. And that thread is that they all know death is final. We all know
that death is final. I even bet that the community in our reading had a version of the
saying: Only two things in life are sure. Death and taxes.
Even with the benefit of knowing Jesus, in the flesh, of having heard His words
and sermons out of His own mouth, of having witnessed the healings with their
own eyes, even with the benefit of being actual friends with Him like Martha and
Mary are and share meals with Jesus, even though, the human imagination simply
cannot conceive someone surviving death. Especially not once natural decomposition
has set in.
Think about it, have you ever had a “science experiment” in your fridge when you
forgot about those leftovers? That mold and stench is decomposition. Can any of us
imagine that the mold disappears, the stench goes away and it’s edible again? And
if you were to see this happen, would you dare to eat it?
Jesus reprimands Martha and all of us. "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you
would see the glory of God?"
But this is hard to believe, now and then. It’s not easy to believe that the glory, the
power of God reigns even over death. Our brains struggle to conceive of this.
Maybe it is so hard to believe, because we have no say in it, no control. When we
cannot influence or affect change on anything, we simply assume there is nothing
that can be done. If WE can’t solve death, it can’t be done. It seems inconceivable.
None of us asked to be born. And none of us want our loved ones to die, we don’t
want to die. But it doesn’t matter. No one escapes, death is the great equalizer. It
shows us unmistakably that none of us have any control really. No decision, no
lifestyle, no supplement, none of our achievements, nothing stops death. No matter
how much in control we think we are in our life, there is no control to be had here.
We are ultimately helpless.
So, what do we do when there is nothing we can do?
Why is Jesus disturbed or angry about Mary? Because she lacked trust in God’s
ultimate power.
Why did Jesus cry? Because the community believed in the tomb more than in
God’s work.
Why did He berate Martha? Because the stench of death was more real to her than
the Son of God standing beside her.
How can we trust in God’s ultimate power? How can we believe that His works are
stronger than the tomb? How do we ignore the stench of death? How can we grasp
and trust this inconceivable authority God has over death when all we can do is to
feel helpless like Martha and Mary?
Jesus says: “Lazarus, come out.”
And the dead man walks out of his own tomb. Lazarus lives.
But this is not where the reading ends. It ends with Jesus saying: " unbind him and
let him go." Unbind him.
Surely, Jesus could have simply taken away the strips of cloth binding Lazarus.
That’s nothing compared to bringing him back to life.
These strips of cloth bind him to his death. They tie him up. Lazarus’ resurrection
is not yet complete.
But Jesus tells Martha and Mary, and the whole community gathered to unbind, to
remove what ties Lazarus to death.
What a blessing, what a gift this is. This community participates in restoring
Lazarus to life. We might not have any control over life and death, but we have a
part in it to fulfill. We do not need to feel helpless. Rather we can acknowledge our
part in God’s creation.
And our part is made clear by Jesus. Unbind him.
Jesus is upset at the lack of belief demonstrated by His friends. Yet He does not
give them an exercise or a lesson on faith. Jesus gives them, and us, a task.
Something to do. Unbind him.
With every piece of cloth being untied by his family and friends, Lazarus gains
life. The ties to death are removed.
With no power over life and death, we are still full participants in God’s grace
when we untie and remove what binds our neighbor to death and return them to
community.
These ties can be quite literally a fear of death that we can take off by sharing our
faith. We can take off this big deadly tie with hope and faith in the resurrection,
looking to Jesus on both sides of the grave.
But there are also other, smaller ties that can be death-dealing in a different, not so
direct way. Even though they are not as big as death itself, they are important. Any
sin, any tie that keeps us out of our community like Lazarus was when he was still
bound up, any tie that binds our neighbor to live a life on the margins, any ties
forcing people to live without freedom and dignity, they too are death dealing.
Because these ties rob people not only of a good life that God wishes for all his
children, but it also robs them of the possibility, the time to develop and nourish
their faith in God. Most people worried about starving to death for example, a
person always worried about their physical safety can hardly spend much thought
on, let alone serve in God’s kingdom.
Shortly after our reading today, Lazarus serves a meal. He can only do this, he can
only serve, because his community removed the ties that bound him away from
them.
We all benefit from removing the ties that bind us away from our neighbors, both
dead and alive. The great cloud of witnesses, the saints who have gone before us
and we who are alive benefit from one another. By removing these ties, we free
each other up to serve God’s Kingdom on both sides of the grave and in doing so
we strengthen our communities and deepen our faith.
I believe, in community we can even deepen our faith so much, that we can find a
shy glimpse of joy through the tears of our grief because we trust that Jesus is with
us all, dead and alive. And so, we celebrate, because not even death is the end.
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