“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.’” (John
11:32)
“If you had been here.” Whenever I read the story of the raising of Lazarus (John 11:32-44), the appointed gospel text for All Saints Sunday, I’m always struck by that phrase. Both sisters use it when they approach Jesus. Jesus had been told that his good friend Lazarus was sick. They asked him to come and heal him, but Jesus didn’t show up and now Lazarus is dead. If I were Lazarus’ sibling, I’d certainly be upset that Jesus dawdled around too long, that help didn’t come on time. If it had, things would be different.
If. That’s the two-letter mantra of grief, isn’t it? If things had gone differently, we wouldn’t be having this funeral. Somehow we always think we could’ve done more. We could’ve done something to either prevent a tragedy (or someone else could’ve done more), or at least we could’ve found a way to make this parting hurt less. Unfortunately, what’s done is done and can’t be undone. So we have to live with it in spite of our “ifs.”
You see, “if” never gives us peace. It can make us feel guilty or make us feel angry, but it can’t give us comfort. Only faith can do that. I guess the compilers of the Revised Common Lectionary give us this story of Lazarus being raised as our All Saints gospel because they don’t want us to focus on the “ifs”—on our sense of loss—but, rather, on Christ’s love, compassion, and resurrection.
Something I’ve always loved about this
story is that Jesus, even though he is crying and “greatly disturbed in spirit
and deeply moved, (v.33)” [i] starts his prayer with the
words “I thank you, Father.” He sees in tragedy and loss the opportunity to
find faith and to praise God.
I do a lot of funerals, and I don’t think many people see a funeral as an opportunity to praise; nevertheless, the grief we feel when we lose someone is just a reflection of the joy that person gave us in life. I hope we would celebrate All Saints as a day of thanksgiving and inspiration. God has put saints in our path to help us on our journey, and we, in turn, are the saints who are called to lighten the paths of others.
On this All Saints I’d like to celebrate some who have touched my life and the life of our congregation.
Helen Ferguson was a long-time client of my wife, Marilyn, when Marilyn had her neuro-muscular practice. After Marilyn closed the practice, Helen and her husband Gary remained friends with her. The Fergusons—particularly Helen—were enormously generous people. Even when she was sick with cancer, Helen continued to make donations to Yellow Ribbon, a charity with which Marilyn was involved which collected gifts for our deployed military. Helen always donated her gently-used clothing to Lydia’s Closet and made monetary donations to Faith Lutheran. Gary, a retired Lt. Colonel in the US Air Force, was one of the classiest gentlemen I’ve ever known. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in Vietnam. Although not a regular church-goer, he was fascinated by Biblical studies and often handed on to me his issues of “Biblical Archeology” magazine. He was also a thoughtful and courteous man who could discuss religion and politics without rancor or hyperbole and respected the opinions of others. We are lighting a single candle for this couple as in life they were so close to one another, and died only a few months apart.
We will light a candle for Marilyn’s cousin, Tom Lucid. Every family should have a Cousin Tom. A quiet, gentle man, he was the one who always called and asked, “So how are you?” He was part of the glue that kept a family connected over the miles and over the years. Tom remembered as a child being entertained by his uncle Edward. Uncle Ed fought in Korea and was declared Missing in Action. Tom spent the last years of his life trying to track down his uncle’s remains.
Doris Saudarg was another quiet and gentle soul who would do anything for her family. She took in her Aunt Helen who had been crippled with polio as a child and cared for her throughout her entire life. When her sister, Flo Craw, passed, Doris called her widowed brother-in-law, Fred, every day and cheered him up. Her old Boscov’s co-worker, Cheryl Sermarini, remembers her for her gentle spirit and extreme kindness. She was also the most awesome grandmother—always supporting her grandchildren and cheering them on.
What can I say about the legend that was Joy McGinley? Talkative? Yes! Eccentric? That doesn’t even begin to describe her. Yet Joy had an undeniable love and compassion for just about everyone. She never forgot a birthday or a special occasion. You could always count on a card from Joy at Christmas or Easter or your birthday. She was the one who called shut-ins and asked about their health. Having no children of her own, she lived to give gifts to her nieces, nephews, and grand nieces and nephews. She looked after he sister, Debbie, and her aging father until they passed. In her later years she took in her troubled niece, Jenny, and kept in touch with her, wrote to her, and prayed for her when Jenny was incarcerated. (We are lighting a candle for Jenny, too.)
Finally, I cannot say enough about Faye Glass. In troubled times, she held this congregation together. She was the epoxy which connected members of Faith Lutheran with each other. She was strong and stubborn, but had enormous faith in God. I will always admire her sense of optimism and her insistence that all will turn out for the best. She was generous and forgiving and hugely proud of her grandchildren. No one could sit in a hospital bed and smile and laugh like Faye.
There is a popular story I’m sure generations of pastors have used as a sermon illustration. A little boy stands inside a church nave staring at the stained glass windows depicting various saints and apostles. A Sunday School teacher asks him, “Do you know what a saint is?” The little boy replies, “Sure! The saints are the ones the light shines through.”
God bless, and thanks for reading![i]
The Greek for this is really interesting (at least it is to me!). What the NRSV Bible translates as “greatly disturbed in
spirit” the King James translated as “groaned
in the spirit.” The Greek word is enebrimhsato,
which
literally means Jesus made the sound of a horse snorting. This means he snorted
with indignation—he was angry at death or at the lack of faith of the mourners.
Whatever was the cause of his anger the gospel doesn’t say. We’ll just have to
ask him when we see him.
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