Death sucks

Happy belated All Saints Day! Yesterday afternoon was a little busy (hand my installation) so the sermon is going up today. The main text that this sermon was based on was John 11:32-45, but if you aren't familiar with Mary, Martha and Lazarus, I would suggest reading all of Chapter 11

I am not a huge fan of funerals. First off the reason why there is a funeral is because someone die – not really the best reason for a group of people to gather. Second, we face our own mortality as we mourn the loss of a loved one, a friend, a family member, a co-worker, a neighbor, or a colleague and at the same time we also face the reality that we too will die someday…there is nothing like the death of someone else to remind us that we too are going to die. I especially dislike the funeral procession from the church to the cemetery…nobody really likes driving at 10 miles per hour, even if it does mean that you get to run red lights. There is also that awkward moment that happens at the visitation, as you gather with a group of friends or family, people start telling stories about the deceased, then you often get into other stories and then you start laughing and eventually there one person who in the middle of the laughter looks over at the casket or urn and everyone who was just laughing gets quiet and starts to feel guilty about laughing at a funeral. But the worst is that as a pastor but even mourner, you often meet new people at funerals and as you are getting ready to leave that phrase that so naturally comes out of your mouth because it is appropriate any other time slips out as you say goodbye to these people that you just meet: It was so great to meet you. It was so great to meet you? You just meet at a funeral, what is great about that? Sure they are a nice person and you have about 40 friends in common and have just never met in person and if you were at a birthday, family reunion, county fair or anything else that would be appropriate, but at a funeral?

However there is one thing that I do like about funerals, the food. Often after a funeral, family and friends will gather either at a local restaurant or in the church for a reception. And most of the time, if you go to a restaurant, it is the decease’s favorite restaurant or at lest one that holds memories of the dearly departed. And if it is a luncheon at the church, at least one of the favorite foods of the deceased is represented. At Bob’s grandma’s (Grandma Dixie’s) funeral, everyone had a Coke on Dixie, even hard core Pepsi drinkers, because it was her favorite drink. At my grandpa’s everyone had to have a Milwaukee’s Best, as gross as those beers are, because it is what he always drank. I have seen people who can’t stand the smell of lutefisk eat it at a funeral in honor of the one who just died.

And as we eat, we tell stories, favorite memories, things that we will miss, pet peeves that the deceased did that drove us crazy, and the healing begins. Laughter begins to flow, the person’s life is celebrated and we start the grief process, for some the grief process will last just days and for others a few years. But it is in eating, something, which is an act solely of the living, that we mourn and celebrate the life of the one who is dead. In this act of the living, we realize that we are not yet dead, that our life will go on, and eventually we will come to accept the death of the one we lost.

Maybe that is why Martha didn’t want Jesus to move the stone from Lazarus’ tomb. Yes she was afraid of the smell, for he had been dead for four days, but as the hostess, the housekeeper, the one who runs around getting all the details together, the one in charge of the party, she realized that nothing would ruin a funeral feast like the smell of someone who has been dead for a few days. Lazarus was dead, for four days! For four day now Mary, Martha and others had been mourning his death and celebrating his life. The grief process had started. Martha realized that Lazarus was indeed dead, she had come to some level of acceptance in her mourning process and returning to see his body, wrapped in cloth, placed in its tomb, would not bring Lazarus back.

But Jesus brought Lazarus back to life. He thanked God for always hearing him and he called out, shouted actually in the Greek, out to Lazarus to come out of his tomb, out of his grave. And Lazarus came out, in fact he walked out. This was not just a healing miracle like Jesus had done before, allowing the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk. Jesus brought someone who was dead back to life. And so back to life that he later serves a meal to Jesus.

But what about us? What about the people who we remember today? Why didn’t Jesus bring them back to life? As much as we begged, pleaded and prayed that they would come back to life again, they are still dead, not here with us today. Why is Lazarus so special?

Well that I can’t answer you, but I can tell you that I’m glad I am not Lazarus’s family. It is not part of today’s gospel text, in fact it is not in the gospels at all. But Lazarus dies again! The only other time we hear about Lazarus after this is that meal he serves to Jesus in the following chapter and that people then plot to kill Lazarus. So while we may not hear about it, Lazarus does die again. He is not still alive, walking around on this earth over 2000 years old. No Lazarus died again, was even the target of a murder plot, and all those people who mourned his death for 4 days had to do it all over again. Funerals are bad enough, the grief process is hard enough, to start picturing your life without a loved one is horrible enough, but to have to do it twice!? And the second time to know that he was probably murdered and did not die of illness as he died the first time, yeah I don’t think I would want to go through that twice.

So where is the good news for us in this text? It reminds us that we are mortal, it makes us frustrated, sad, jealous that our loved one was not brought back to life. What then is the gospel? What then are we suppose to get out of it?

Well today is All Saints Day, a day when the church remembers the lives of the saints who have gone before us. But we also must remember that we are all Saints, here and now. We do not become saints at our earthly death but we become saints at our spiritual death, at our baptisms. We become saints when we are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. We become saints not when we die a physical death but when we die a spiritual death with Christ. We were drown in the waters of baptism, baptized into death with Christ, but we were also baptized into life and resurrection with Christ. We have already died and been brought back to life.

And in baptism we were baptized into the communion of all the saints, including Lazarus. We were baptized so that we could be unbound from the items of this earth that ties our heart and minds so that we might serve others. We have been baptized into death but also into a life and into service.

So yes there may not be that much good news in today’s gospel lesson, there might not be that much to take heart in, only the sorrow of remembering those who have died before us, whether they died last week, last year or even years ago. We are still mourning those people’s physical deaths. But on this All Saints Day, as we mourn, we all celebrate. We celebrate new life, both physical life and spiritual life. We celebrate and thank God for those who have come into our lives within the last year and those who have come into a life with Christ. We doe this as we also mourn and thank God for those who have died and have touched our lives.

Isn’t that such Lutheran theology, the balance between the two, the juxtaposition? Mourning while celebrating, being a saint while also a sinner, remembering the dead while participating in acts of the living, being in the world but not of the world, law and gospel, baptism being both death and a new life.

So maybe funerals aren’t that bad after all. For in that awkward moment after a good laugh or the “It was great to meet you” comment we remember that we are alive and as much as it might suck at times to live after a loved one has died, we are alive. We are alive with Christ! Christ, who has already died the ultimate death for us. Christ, who we have already died with in baptism, so that eventually we will be able to live again in heaven with Christ and with all of our loved ones who we mourn today and each day.