Mary and Martha; remember them? They are the sisters who were hosting Jesus for dinner one evening, except that Martha did all the work, and Mary sat at Jesus' feet for the Bible study. And when Martha complains to Jesus about it, Jesus corrects her! "Martha, Martha, you worry about so many things, but just one thing is necessary ... and Mary chose it." Ouch!
Today's gospel lesson offers us another glimpse of the same sisters, and proof that the sisters were not so different from one another. Four days earlier, the brother of Mary and Martha died; Lazarus, who was a good friend of Jesus. Oh, they sent word to Jesus that he was sick; the invitation suggests that if Jesus were to come, Lazarus would be okay. But Jesus doesn't come; not right away anyway. He waits two days, and he takes another couple of days to walk the two miles to Bethany. The whole incident is very strange and very out of character for the man who would stop to heal a hemorrhaging woman; the man who would stoop to comfort a sick child. Because now, when his good friend needs him badly, Jesus is too busy to come? No wonder Martha (of course it's Martha!) meets Jesus in the driveway and accuses Jesus of not caring. "If only you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died!" It's another way of saying "It's all your fault. If you really cared, you'd have been here."
But surprisingly, the welcome didn't get any warmer when Mary came outside. She's the religious one, remember? Perhaps Jesus thought Mary might provide an understanding perspective, but grief is grief, no matter how one cuts it. "Master!" Mary said, "if you had been here, our brother would not have died." Had Mary and Martha discussed this the night before? Had they agreed that Jesus had let them down? So it seems, and this is where the gospel text begins for us today.
When Jesus asks to be taken to the grave of Lazarus, he finds it surrounded with grief-stricken people, and he is overcome with emotion. Here is the shortest verse in the Bible, and many a preacher has made the joke of taking time to memorize it, but that's unfortunate, because these two words provide for us a view of the empathy of God. "Jesus wept." That's how the gospel writer describes it, and no more words are even necessary. God — the creator of the cosmos — God cried when a man died. And even then, there were the nay-sayers standing by, asking "He gave sight to the blind man, didn't he? Could he not have kept Lazarus from dying?"
This is a text about unanswered prayers and unfinished dreams. It's about us, really, as we have gathered at the bed of a dying loved one, or joined a prayer chain for an unknown person fighting cancer. It is us, as we have reached the end of the available options and uttered "Well, I guess there's nothing left for us to do but pray." It's us, as we have called on God to be God, and his answer never comes ... at least not the answer we were looking for. Welcome to Mary and Martha's world, friends — people who have found disappointment with God.
I recall a January day many years ago. A parishioner called my office and asked me to come over right away. When I arrived, she said that her husband and his brother had been ice fishing the evening before and they never came home. They always came home! "Perhaps there was some explanation," I said. "Perhaps the walleyes were really biting, or they stopped at a friend's house on the way home. Let's not lose hope." We prayed — and prayed — and prayed. Throughout the morning and then the afternoon, the calls grew worse. A hole was found in the nearby lake and the sheriff was investigating. Then her brother-in-law's frozen body was found on the surface of the lake, and her husband's truck was spotted through the hole. His body was recovered from the truck. And then the calls stopped, and so did our prayers.
Where was God in our suffering ... in our praying ... in our anguish ... in our pain? It has taken me years to answer that question to my own satisfaction, but I think I finally know. He was weeping. When those men drowned, God was the first to weep — God was the first to shed a tear. When Lazarus died, Jesus wept. It still does not answer the question of God's inability or God's choice not to intervene; such is the stuff that human suffering is made of. But to know that Jesus wept at these tragedies draws me back to him ... because, in truth, there is nowhere else to turn.
For Lazarus, the story takes a good turn. Jesus raises him from a stinky grave and Lazarus lives to see another day. But the euphoria doesn't last forever, because Lazarus — like us — doesn't get out of this world alive. This now becomes an allegory for the larger picture of our existence; that we will die, all of us will die, but we will live again, and live forever. Because Jesus cares this much; that he chose to die so that we might live for eternity.
On All Saints, each of us has loved ones to remember, and most of us would insist that they died too soon. Oh, what we'd give for one more day with a parent, or a sibling, or a child, or a friend who is gone. It's like picking the scab from a wound that seems to never heal. But then we sing "For All The Saints" by William Walsham How and that brings salve to our wound.
For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
who, you, by faith, before the world confessed,
thy name, O Jesus, be forever blessed
Alleluia! Alleluia!
O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they, in glory, shine;
yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
But lo! There breaks a yet more glorious day:
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
the King of glory, passes on his way.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
This is our finish line! The agony of our last breath turns to ecstasy when we are received into the kingdom of God. We cannot walk this planet forever; nobody can. But the good news of the gospel is that we are promised another place; a better place ... a place where tears are turned to dancing, and pain is no more, and sadness is replaced by joy. For all the saints, indeed!
So today, even with sadness and melancholy, we remember those saints who have gone before us, and while we miss them, we are so grateful that their lives touched our own. I am reminded of the father leading his young daughter into a great cathedral, basking in the light shining through the stained-glass windows depicting biblical heroes. The little girl pointed up at the windows and said, "What are those, daddy?" and the father answered, "Those are the saints." The girl was thoughtful for a while, and finally said, "Oh, I get it; saints are things that let the light shine through!" Exactly! May you rejoice today, as you remember the saints you have loved, and the light of Christ that burned so brightly through their lives. Thanks be to God. Amen.
1. "For All The Saints" words by William W. How, 1864, in the public domain.