I want to tell you about a grave in Peru. I shared this story with you about ten years ago when a grave of a warrior priest was discovered near the pyramids of the ancient Moche Indians.
The Moche Indians preceded the Incas in Peru. Their graves have yielded a treasure trove of artifacts, and a thriving black market for the residents in that isolated, northern part of Peru. The inhabitants up there regularly loot the graves and sell the artifacts to collectors.
The government decided to crack down on the black market, and it was during a raid on a house in the Lambayaque Valley that the police discovered the other grave. They surrounded the house of the man they suspected of looting graves. A shot was fired, then a gun fight, and the man was killed. They went in the house and discovered an enormous quantity of artifacts taken from a grave. They found the grave he had looted and they secured it. As they were doing this they saw a mound nearby, which is the unmistakable sign of an unopened grave.
The police called in the archaeologists, and then protected them twenty-four hours a day from the local grave robbers who did not take kindly to the shooting of one of their friends, and who had difficulty seeing any difference between what the archaeologists were doing and what they were doing. At any rate, the archaeologists continued to dig, and they uncovered an incredible treasure, one of the great archaeological finds in this hemisphere.
What they stumbled upon was the grave of a warrior priest. He was like a king. They knew immediately that he was royalty because of the abundance of gold in the grave. His vestment was covered with gold decoration. He was surrounded with gold artifacts, a fabulous wealth that he was taking with him into the next life. The Moche Indians hadn't heard that "you can't take it with you." This man was taking enough wealth with him to live as comfortably in the next life as he had lived in this life.
There were five other people buried with him in that grave, two male servants and two female concubines. They were buried along side of him, one at his head, one at his foot, and one on either side of him, framing his body. Then a few feet apart, they discovered another body. He was a soldier. He had a sword in his hand. He was a guard, protecting them on their journey. This soldier had no feet. They had amputated his feet so that he could not flee his post.
I was fascinated with that story, in part because it is a treasure story and an adventure story, and I have this fantasy that someday I am going to stumble upon a fabulous treasure. But there is something more here, something that haunts me. It is disturbing. You could call it the "sociology of immortality." Here was a grave for royalty, a warrior priest. For him, all this treasure had been accumulated. For him, five other persons had been sacrificed. We can reach no other conclusion than that his life was valuable, and theirs was not. His life was important, their life was worthless. He was considered to be immortal, they were not.
If you think about it, that was true around the world back in those days. It was certainly true in Egypt, where they built those pyramids. The pyramids were simply embarkation points on the journey into the next life. They were reserved for royalty, only the pharaohs had pyramids.
In the ancient world, the king or queen, the royal class, had importance and worth as individuals. They were persons, in that sense. Their lives were privileged, their deaths were mourned, and their stories remembered.
The other people in the grave with the warrior priest were not there because they were considered precious. They were there because they were considered dispensable. They were servants, concubines, soldiers, who had importance only in relation to their value to the king. His life was what was important. The state, the nation, or the empire was what was immortal. The common individual was unimportant and soon forgotten.
That is the grave in Peru. Now I want you to go to another grave, this one in Palestine. This story, which was read to us as the gospel lesson this morning, takes place about the time that priest was buried in Peru, because the Moche Indians lived from about the first century until the eight century A.D.
The Peruvian grave was for a priest, a king. The grave in Palestine was for a common man. Lazarus was his name. He was the brother of Mary and Martha. Mary and Martha were close friends of Jesus. Whenever he came to Jerusalem, we think he stayed in Bethany, in the house of Mary and Martha. It was there, as a guest in their house, that he probably came to know Lazarus, their brother, although this is the only place where Lazarus is mentioned.
Lazarus became deathly ill. Mary and Martha sent for Jesus to come and heal him. The messengers take days to find Jesus. When they find him they tell Jesus that Lazarus is dying. John reports it in his gospel in a way that lets you know that Jesus is in no hurry to get to Bethany. From John's point of view, this is because Jesus is about to perform a miracle, he is going to raise Lazarus from the dead. So he takes his sweet time getting to Bethany.
In the meantime, Lazarus dies. They put him in the tomb, and seal it. Mary and Martha weep for their brother. Jesus arrives. Martha says, "If you had been here, my brother would not have died." Jesus says, "Your brother will live again." They go to the tomb.
It is pointed out by John that Lazarus has been in there four days, with the inevitable consequences to the body. That's to make it clear to the reader that Lazarus didn't just pass out. He hasn't slipped into a coma. This is no game. He's really dead. He's deader than a door nail.
Jesus approaches the tomb. And this is amazing. He weeps. It's the shortest verse in the Bible, "Jesus wept." This text should be read at all funerals to reveal to those who weep at the graveside of a loved one, that Jesus also wept at a graveside.
In Isaiah it is said of the Messiah, "He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Well, here's the Messiah at Lazarus' grave. He knows our sorrow. He is acquainted with our grief. "Jesus wept." Then he cried out, "Lazarus, come out," and old Lazarus comes walking out of the tomb. It's a miracle. That's the way John records it.
But there is much more here. John also records it as a "sign." In John, a "sign" is a "revelation." The revelation is, we shall share in Jesus' resurrection. Lazarus is there for us. This is proclaimed in the words that Jesus says to Martha in the verses that precede our reading of the text, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." Because he lives, we also will live.
That's there. But so is this. Lazarus is not royalty. Lazarus is a common human being, just like you and me. It is in reference to Lazarus that the crowd seeing Jesus weep, says, "Look how much he loved him." As he resurrects Lazarus, he speaks his name. Later on in the gospel, Jesus will be referred to as the "Good Shepherd," because he is the one who knows the name of each of his sheep. He knows our name.
It is also in the Gospel of John, in the Resurrection scene in the last chapters, where another Mary weeps over Jesus' tomb, Mary Magdalene. A stranger approaches her. She does not recognize him until he speaks her name. He simply says, "Mary," and she knows it's Jesus. Because Jesus knows our names, he knows us personally, he knows each one of us individually, as if we were important and eternally precious, as if we were royalty.
There is a grave in Peru. There is a tomb in Bethany. Now, go to Washington, D.C., and to the monument for the Vietnam Veterans. It is a remarkable monument for a number of reasons, but the most significant one, which is immediately apparent to anybody who visits it, is that every name is there, 58,000 names. They are not listed according to rank, with the officers listed first. Nor are the officers names in larger letters than enlisted persons. Nor are they listed alphabetically. The artist insisted on that. She said that it would be too bureaucratic, too dehumanizing. She insisted that the names be listed according to the date on which they fell, as if to say, this day will always be remembered because this person, on this day John, or Mary, or Daniel, or Rebecca died. So this day will be like a saints day.
You know the rest of the story of that wonderful monument. Millions of people have visited it. Do you know what they see? They don't see an idealized statue of a soldier, a generic representative of a warrior (although later on they did put such a statue nearby). What they see are names, individual names, 58,000 names. Everyone is there. When they dedicated that memorial they read every name on the wall, for two and one-half days they read the names.
Something happened between that grave in Peru and that memorial in Washington. What happened was at a tomb in Bethany, where Jesus wept, and the crowd said, "Look how much he loved him," and where Jesus called Lazarus by name, and where he said to Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me shall not die, but have eternal life."
The title of this sermon is taken from the New Orleans funeral marching hymn, "When the saints go marching in, I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in." This is All Saints Sunday. It's really All Souls Day. Yesterday was All Saints Day. Both days were created because the early Christians wanted to honor and remember ordinary, exemplary persons, people of faith who lived their lives faithfully.
They did not honor kings or queens. In Rome, before the Christians, it was only Caesars, the royalty, who were honored. But not after Christ. No longer are royalty honored simply because they are royalty. Now saints are remembered. Most of them, the vast majority of the recognized saints, are common folk, who through faith, led uncommon lives. Each one of them is remembered. "I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in."
What is so remarkable about the Christian understanding of life is that that number is not a reserved list. You can be in that number. I was listening to talk radio the other day as I was driving along in my car. I am reluctant to confess that in public, although this service is broadcast on the same radio station that I was listening to. It was a great program. John Moores, the owner of the Padres, was a guest on the show. Some guy called in, and said, "I have had priority seating in Qualcomm Stadium for the Padre games. I want to know, are you going to guarantee that I'll have priority seating in the new stadium?"
Moores deftly dodged the question, and I don't want to get into the politics of baseball parks, I just want to point out what occurred to me when I heard his question. The Bible reveals that while there may be priority seating here on earth, there is no such thing in heaven, because Christianity has introduced a new, radical sociology of immortality, and it says, we can all be in that number.
There is a grave in Peru with a warrior priest. A king was buried with anonymous servants who were sacrificed to accompany him on his journey to a land where he would continue to live like royalty.
There is a wall in Washington where every name there is equal to every other name, because every sacrifice is considered equal to every other sacrifice, and every life is as precious as every other life.
How did that happen? How did we get from Peru to Washington? It was through a grave at Bethany, and an empty tomb in Jerusalem.
There is an actor who played Benjamin Franklin for school children. He dressed the part and told the story in the first person to give the students an introduction to Benjamin Franklin's life, and some idea of his place in history. Then he invited questions. A boy raised his hand, and said, "I thought you died?" The actor replied, "Well, I did die. I died on April 17, 1790, when I was 84 years old. But I didn't like it, and I am never going to do that again."
He was real pleased with his answer. He asked, "Now, are there any other questions?" Another boy in the back row raised his hand, "When you were in heaven, did you see my mother?"
The actor was stunned. He didn't know how to answer. He knew that for the boy to ask that question, he must have lost his mother recently. It must be a matter of ultimate concern for him. He knew he had to say something. Then he heard himself say, "I'm not sure if she was the one I think she was. But if she was, she was the prettiest angel there."1
You can be in that number, when the saints go marching in.
1. From Buzz Stevens