ALL SAINTS SUNDAY 2024.

Sermon and Gospel: John 11.32-44

32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ 35 Jesus began to weep.

36 So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ 37 But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’

38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ 40 Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’

44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’

SERMON: “Do you believe?”

Driving the endless miles on the California Freeways, going from place to place, visit to visit, dinners and concerts, sure is an activity that takes much time in our daily lives. Driving on the busy FWY’s, you often think: “All these people – where are they all going? Where do they have to be and why the hurry?”

As all the other drivers might contemplate the same questions, as we try to get to our destination in time, we are only thinking of short-term concepts. From A to B, from home to work, from duty to pleasure.

These endless hours of driving often get me to ponder about the more long-term concepts of where we are going: where are we going, why are hurrying along, why are we getting frustrated by slow drivers in front of us when we should try metaphorically and literally to slow down, to be aware and awake, to think about our final and true destination.

Life is short. Life is precious. Unpredictable.

Life can be altered in a second. Life can be over in a second.

Life is short, but it is way more than the distance between A and B. It is a journey with a beginning and an end. It is a journey wrapped in the eternity of the one who said I am Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end.

Driving the endless miles on the California Freeways, going from place to place, this weekend did lend me time to listen to a new Album from the Danish Singer Thomas Helmig. He has been a part of my youth and adulthood. He is exactly my age. He lives in Aarhus, as I did. And he was a kid just like we do. But two years ago, he lost his youngest child, Hugo, at the age of 23. Tragic, heartbreaking, life-shattering and devastating.

2 years after the tragic passing of his young son, Thomas Helmig has released a new album in remembrance of his son and intimately inviting us into his deepest grief.”Sortedam” is an album that hits you in the gut and heart, as it did when I was driving from A to B listening to this intimate, heartbreaking songs.

As a mother, who loves her sons deeply and dearly, and who worries daily: as a wife who worries about my husband, as a daughter who worries about my aging parents, as a friend who worries about my friends, and as your pastor who worries about her congregation, I was weeping driving on FWY 60 going east.

Because through our lives and time, we will hurt, we will lose, we will weep, we will mourn – because we love.

Throughout our lives, we will ask just like the mourning sister’s Mary and Martha: If only… if only God had been there, if only I had known, if only I had been there, if only the tumor was found earlier if only that drunk driver had been pulled over earlier, if only……

In one of the songs on his album, Thomas Helmig sings:

[Verse]

Vindstød af stormstyrke, piskende regn

Vindstød af stormstyrke, resten af vejen

Åh, hvordan ku' jeg miste, den som jeg skulle passe på

Hvordan ku' jeg miste, den jeg skulle passe på

Gusts of gale force, pouring rain.

gust of wind, the rest of the way.

How could I lose the one I had to watch out for?

Troubled waters, showers of sorrow.

Troubled waters dissolved in tears.

How could I ever let go of your hand?

How could I, let go of your hand

Gusts of storm, fallen trees.

gusts of storm, everywhere I am.

How could I lose the one I had to carry?

Chorus Forgive me (Forgive me) Forgive me (Forgive me)

Grief has many stages and expressions. Greif is complicated. Elisabeth Kubler Ross famous stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, describe some of the phases of grief for the dying and the one losing, but there is no typical way to grieve, just as there in not a typical loss.

But the landscape of loss and grief is like troubled waters, showers of sorrow, like gusts of storm, fallen trees, gale force, and pouring rain.

And the cries of loss and grief are pleas for forgiveness, for neglect, for missed opportunities, for lost time, and a living love that makes everything hurt. There is no typical way to grieve, just as there is no typical loss. We all have our stories to tell and our losses to grieve.

Certainly, the loss of Lazarus is not typical: not for the sister, and not for his friend Jesus. John uses the word love 3 times to describe the depth of Jesus’ relationship with Lazarus. John does not describe what is at stake for the sisters, and he does not need to do so. Siblings are our oldest friends and our first enemies. Siblings are the holders of our history and the bearers of our future. In Mary and Martha’s context, Lazarus might be even more. No husbands, no fathers or sons appear in the sister’s story. So, Lazarus was the patriarch, holding the family together and providing for the sisters.

The story told is a big story with oversized themes. There is love and pain, doubt and faith, death and resurrection.

And tears. The tears of Martha and Mary. The tears of the wailing women. The tears of Jesus. The tears of Thomas Helmig mourning his son. The tears of Eric Clapton hoping for no tears in heaven. The tears we know so well.

Sitting in my car, listening to Thomas Helmig, thinking of our songs, thinking of all the losses and the grief that we all share, - I find comfort in the shortest line in the Gospel.

“Jesus wept.” Scholars might debate why he wept: regretting bringing Lazarus back to a fallen world, dreading that Lazarus would die again, or weeping over the lack of faith from the sisters.

“Jesus wept.” Jesus wept because he was sad and mourning too. Jesus wept because he was like one of us. That is why Jesus wept embracing his full humanity. Deeply moved, deeply sad, feeling the way we do. That means something that Jesus grieves as we do, that he too will walk through grief stages. We can imagine a God of Grace who grieves when we suffer and who will not rest until we are home and without pain – and every tear is wiped from our eyes.

The stone moved from Lazarus’ tomb is the stone that also blocks our faith and hope. The call to Lazarus to come out, is a call to each and every one of us to come out of fear and grief, and into a life of faith, hope, and love sustained by a God who weeps with us, walks with us, calls on us and calls us into a new life. Here and now. There and then.

Thomas Helmig sings in his Lullaby for Hugo

“Can you smell those candles your mom lights for you

in the bathroom by the big mirror?

v yesterday.

Ooh, today was one of the hard ones

like all the others since.

Sleep well, my boy, wherever you are

I miss you wherever you are

I’ll sing this song to you and kiss you goodnight.!

So, do we dare to believe? That life is more than the distance from A to B? That life is a story of grief and losses, but even more of joy and eternal love.

Do we dare to let our tears flow to show our grief and shower our faith? Tears put us in touch with the essential things we know to be dear or wrong. Tears can be of great heartache and or boundless joy and gratitude. Tears remain a biological fit from God. When Desmond Tuto declared in an interview that his favorite prophet was Jeremiah, he went on to explain why: “It is because Jeremiah cries a lot. I cry a lot too. I cry every day. But think how much God cries! We have a God who weeps… so I cray a lot and always have. But I also laugh a lot too!” With that, he let out his infectious laugh.

Do we dare to believe that God is with us in life and in death, and life beyond death? A faith not only says “if only” but a faith saying “when God will swallow up death forever and will wipe away the tears from all faces. When God will dwell with us and death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more – for God is making all things new.”

Do we dare to believe that our lives are more than the distance in miles or years – it is a life of faith, hope, and love, sustained by God’s Grace.

All Saints is a day where we acknowledge that our lives, our faith, and our hopes are lived in that crossing of past and present, reality and hope, biological and existential. All of this, all the time, everything that has been, is and will be is in God’s Hands. Everything is melting into eternity.

Jesus asks us to look ahead and beyond. Dare to dream and remember, dare to live despite everything that might hurt us as we know that blessings are only found when we dare, when we share, and when we care.

November is. All saints it is.

Blessed are we to be here. With our faith, our hope, our tears and our joys, our memories and our love.

Thanks be to God. We are not alone. Amen

Prayer:

Almighty God,

We come with our sorrows and worries and lay them on you: we pray for strength to live and cope.

Make us strong when we are weak.

Give us light when there is darkness.

Give us faith when we doubt.

Give us hope when we despair.

Tell us that the ones we love are with you: loved, blessed, and comforted.

We pray for all without hope, all weak, vulnerable, sick, and dying. We pray for all who mourn and cry.

Give strength and wisdom to those who have power, position, and privilege in the world. Let them rule with love as the Golden Rule.

Be with your church and your people.

Bless us to live, hope, and believe. Bless us to be. Amen