ALL SAINTS SUNDAY.
Pastor: The Lord be with you!
We remember, O God: The countless saints of history who have blazed a trail of courage through time.
All: We remember, O God…
Pastor: The tender touch of loved ones, the example of heroes, the healing words of comforters, the remarkable acts of fearless ones.
All: We remember, O God…
Pastor: The gentle strength of grandmothers, the loyalty of friends, the kindness of strangers, the joy of children, the sacrifice of parents.
All: We remember, O God…
Pastor: The supreme love of Jesus, the blessing of his Spirit, the reminder of his words, the sharing of his suffering, and the glory of his resurrection.
All: We remember in every time & place - let us worship God with joy! AMEN.
SERMON “Tears”
Tears fall down my face
as I grieve, I remember
Jesus wept as well.
(Haikuprayers2021)
It is all Saints Sunday – and the gospel today is filled with great emotion, as this day is too for us.
The raising of Lazarus is a grand story of not only great faith but also of great emotions: there is love and pain, doubt and faith, death and resurrection. It is the story about human loss and human grief. It is the story about anger and despair. It is a story about tears.
It is All Saints Sunday – and it is a day of remembrance, grief, tears and of faith. It is a day with deep emotions as we all share our humanity when we grieve, and tears fall down our face.
Tears are a symbol and a sign of our humanity, - and today with the story about Lazarus we know that we share these tears with Jesus himself. Today we are reminded that as tears fall down our face, as we grieve, we are reminded today to remember that Jesus wept as well.
SLIDE 27 There are only two places in the Gospel that directly tells us that Jesus wept. The one we just listened to, and the other is when Jesus cried over Jerusalem, and the fate of the holy city.
That there is only to places in the Gospel directly telling us that Jesus wept, does not mean that he did not weep more than these time, - but most importantly it does tell us that Jesus did weep. With his tears he shared our humanity, our grief, our sorrow, our death – just as he shared our angst and fear when he cried out on the cross: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me!”
Why did Jesus weep at the grave of Lazarus?
Did he weep out of heartbreak and sorrow for his dear friend?
Did he weep out of compassion for Martha and Mary in their grief?
Did he weep out of compassion for all humanity and all the hardship we must endure when we love and die?
Did he weep out of holy anger and disappointment because they were of so little faith?
Why did Jesus’ weep and let his tears fall down his face? What does it tell us about our grief, our tears and our faith, that our Savior wept like us?
Why and when do we weep? When we lose our beloved ones and face the days ahead without them.
When we cannot even begin to imagine a life without that special one. When we feel compassion and share the grief of others.
When we watch a movie that reminds us of lost love and lost loved ones. When we remember how it was and cannot image how it will be.
When we feel heartbroken and angry by the unfairness of life and death, the untimeliness, the violence, the unexpectedness and the seperation of death.
We weep and let tears fall down our face, when we grieve, when we are moved, when we are angry, when we feel hopeless, when we feel alone, when we cannot seem to find our way. And when we cannot find the words, - the tears speak for us.
And in our grief and with our streaming tears, we need to be seen, heard, comforted just as Jesus saw, heard and comforted Mary and Martha that day.
Jesus said, when he gave the sermon on the mount, that we as fellow humans should be light for each other. Let your light shine on others. We do that when we shine in joy, in laughter, in love and friendship, but we also do that when we shine in the darkness of death, in the despair of grief, in love and in friendship.
Do not put your light under a bushel, Jesus said, but let it shine for everyone to see.
Especially when we grieve and when we are trapped in the darkness of loss, fear or loneliness, we need that light. We need the eyes of mercy to fall upon us, - we need to be seen in a tender way even in our most vulnerable moments. Just like Jesus saw Martha and Mary. Just like God wipes away every tear and comforts us. And then with time, we are called out of our grief and darkness, unbound and free to live again with our grief.
Grief and loss do take much room in our lives: and often it is hard to cry and express our sorrow.
But the tears are a way for God to reach us. And reach into the deeper layers of our soul and heart where love is, faith is, hope is. When we cry, God weeps with us and let us touch the very heart of our lives, fears, loves and hopes.
Tears fall down my face
As I grieve, I remember
Jesus wept as well.
(Haikuprayers2021)
Jesus wept, and when he did that first emotional movement, lead to another more vivid act. When we heard about him crying over Jerusalem, he immediately goes to the temple of Jerusalem and throws all the ones out that discredit the sacredness of the temple. With great force and holy anger.
When Jesus feels the deep deep sorrow, and devastating despair of Martha, Mary and the Jews, he wept. And immediately Jesus called Lazarus back to life and out of the tomb.
When we live and when we love, we are bound to live with grief and sorrow too. We too have been at gravesites and memorials, where emotions have even raw, and we have been crying out hearts out. And we hoped that by our tears we too could call the dead out of the tomb and into life again.
That power is not ours. But we can resurrect something else: life that has been marked by grief, laughter that has been silenced, and loneliness that is entrapping. With our tears we may show our compassion with those departed and those grieving. And we realize that we are all deeply connected with those ahead of us and those after. And as long as we are alive, we must be light and salt for each other – even when it hurts the most.
When teas fall down our face, it is part of our human release of emotions. And it is part of how we find our way back to life again: not the same, as we are still missing and grieving, but still alive.
Tears connects us to the very being of Christ, with the very source of compassion and love, and it makes us capable to love and long. Without the strength of our tears, we would never become fully human, as the tears open for a new land, waters the wilderness and give life to new sprouts of hope.
Tears are one of the finest symbols of shared humanity, we have. Across cultural divides, political, religious, generational differences we weep. And equally we laugh and smile across all these divides too.
Victor Borge famously said that the shortest distance between people is a smile, - but sometimes it might also be a tear.
Tears fall down my face
As I grieve, I remember
Jesus wept as well.
That is good to remember. That is good to remember not to forget – that Jesus wept too. That Jesus shared our humanity, our sorrows and our hopes. That we were not left alone.
That is good to remember on a day like this where we each carry our grief and memories with us.
That is good to remember on a day like this where we read and remember the names of the ones, we lost here in our church community the past year.
That is good to remember on a day like this in the year 2021 when we remember that we could not gather in person last year as Covid19 separated us and cared us.
Today we will remember and remember not to forget:
· The ones we loved in our lives
· The ones we lost in our church family
· The many who passed away due to Covid19 – here in US and globally
· The many unjust deaths due to racial injustice, vicious violence, sad neglect or poverty.
And we will hold everyone affected by grief and loss in our prayers today.
We hold everyone departed from this world, in our prayers as we hope that the word of Revelation rings true:
“…. See, the home of God is among mortals.
We will dwell with them,
They will be his people, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be mot more, Mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. “And the one who was seated on the throne said: “See, I am making all thins new. “Revelation 21
And then we remember to remember that
As tears fall down our face
As we grieve, we remember
Jesus wept as well.
In our tears there is healing to be found.
In Jesus’ tears there is comfort and mercy to be found.
And in the final cry to Lazarus: “Unbind him and let him go!” there is a faith to be found. A faith and a hope that can set us free from all that brings us down, bend our knees, breaks our hearts, have us begging please, and believe that our tears one day will be wiped away. Someday, somehow, somewhere.
Beyond the door, there's peace, I am sure
And I know there will be no more
Tears in heaven
Amen.
Almighty God,
We thank you for bringing light and grace to the world through Jesus Christ.
We thank you for being light for those we have followed to their grave. We believe that you are with them, a place where there is no night or day, no tears or sorrows.
We thank you for every blessed saint in our lives, at we pray that you will wipe the tears of our eyes, so we again may see and find the ones here on earth that we still rely on, love and need.
When we mourn and weep, and when our hearts are weary and heavy, reminds us that you are with us and one day you will make everything new.
We remember these who have died since November 2020 in our church family:
Candles of faith hope and love.