All Saints Sunday B

Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 24; Revelation 21:1-6; John 11:32-44

Martha was a saint, but she was afraid of the smell. Wouldn’t you be? Her dearest brother Lazarus had died and had been buried four days in a tomb and Jesus wanted to open it up. I’d be scared. Everything to do with death is scary. Sure, we like to pretend we’re not scared, and so we dress up as mummies and skeletons and ghosts on Halloween…but inside the skeleton costume is a real living person and inside the living person is someone scared of dying.

And so it is with some…hesitation, maybe, that we gather and pray and even sing about those saints who have died. Real living people that we knew and loved and who are no longer here. It’s comforting to remember their presence…but uncomfortable, or even scary to be reminded that death has separated us, and will one day come for us, too. Maybe you can remember the first funeral you attended…maybe at a young age…and the mixture of emotions that came along with it.

The death of Lazarus in this Gospel story is not a happy one. He has died too young. Needlessly. In fact, Mary and Martha, sisters of the dead man, must be extra distraught because Jesus himself said that Lazarus’s illness would not lead to death. But there they were, burying their own brother.

And so they had, and we still have, traditions and rituals that come along with death. It can be comforting to have some practical things to do when you feel lost in the confusion of losing a loved one. For the friends of Lazarus those customs including weeping. And even Jesus, when he arrives, weeps. They gathered together and visibly demonstrated their grief. They also had tied and bound up Lazarus’s body with cloth and then sealed it in a tomb with a heavy stone.

Of course, we modern people have our own customs and rituals to help take the edge of death. We don’t say someone ‘died,’ they ‘passed away.’ We hear of someone else’s friend dying and say, “I’m so sorry,” and then look for a way out of the conversation. For the most part, we avoid the conversation to begin with. Because death is scary. We try to control it, fence it off, protect ourselves from its sting.

But, what if we are so afraid of death that we start putting on our graveclothes too soon? What if we are so afraid of our dying that we forget how to live?

I had a dream this week…I’ve been thinking about this text from Revelation — the alpha and omega — the beginning and the end. And it was the omega, the end, that held my attention. I pictured the omega sign racing towards me. I watched the end of my life approaching, never quite sure of when it was arriving, but always sure it was getting closer.

Everything has an end, and all endings feel like little deaths. Relationships come to an end. Jobs come to an end. Responsibilities come to an end. (There will come a day when I am no longer the father of a toddler. That part of my life will just be over.) And these endings, these little deaths, bring all the kinds of mixed emotions that death always brings.

If you’ve been through enough of these little deaths, you just might be a little tired of them. You might be dreading the next late night phone call, the next friend to move away, the next beloved TV show ending. And for all of us, this survival part of our brain kicks in…the little instinct we have that keeps us alive at all costs…and that instinct tells us that the only thing we know for sure is that we are alive right now. And any change we make might put that in jeopardy. And so we convince ourselves to put up with all kinds of nonsense just to avoid making a change…to avoid taking a risk that we might draw a little bit closer to that omega on the horizon.

And that’s when we find ourselves bound up. Already wearing our graveclothes. Sealed up inside our own tombs. Too afraid of dying to live. Too afraid of the end to begin.

My friends, Jesus showed up late for Lazarus’s death in order to show us that it was not the end. This is not the end. Death, too, is just one of those little deaths. The real Omega, the end, belongs to God — not to death. God has already promised us what the end looks like and it is not a sealed up tomb. It’s an empty one.

It’s a feast, like in that amazing reading from Isaiah. A great party with food and wine and everyone, I mean everyone is invited. God will wipe away the tears from all faces.

In the book of Revelation, (which is so often used to try to scare people,) God says this about the end:

It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. (Rev 21.5)

and

I am making all things new. (Rev 21.5)

The Alpha and the Omega are way bigger than we thought. Whatever it is that you dread, whatever ending you fear around the corner is not the Omega, is not “The End.” Not even your own death.

God redeems every ending; God resurrects every death. So if you are bound up by the graveclothes of fear and sealed inside your tomb — come out of there. You are unbound. If you are facing an ending in your life, know that God also has a beginning for you. God is the Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end. God is making all things new.

How would your week be different if you took off some of the graveclothes that are tied around you? If you stepped out of the tomb? Not that you can escape death. (After all, poor Lazarus had to die again. Jesus had to die, too.) You and I are not invincible…but how might you live if you knew that death is not the Omega? That death is not the end? That fear doesn’t get the last word?

And who else can we set free? When Jesus called Lazarus forth from the tomb, he told others to unbind him. We need each other to be unbound, to be untied.

And that’s why today is All Saints Day. That’s why without fear, without hesitation, we gather and pray and even sing about those saints who have died. Real living people that we knew and shared life with. Or real living people whose stories and memories inspire us to live life without dreading death. Real living people like us who faced ending after ending, but whom God renewed and redeemed each and every time.

And through faith, we are joined with them now — real, living people — as the saints unbound, set loose and free to live without fear.