Every day we are confronted with instances that make us question our life. For some it is being confronted by the boss, for others it is dealing with family. It can be not doing well in school or friendship which have taken a sour tone.
When things go bad in our life we very often turn immediately to God. Just like in today’s Gospel when Martha and Mary ran to Jesus and said “Lord, if you would have been here…” this never would have happened. We say , God if only you had been present in that staff meeting, I would never have gotten shot down like I did. Lord, if only you had been around for my test, I would have passed with flying colors. How strange it is that we tend to think God is not present in our lives when things are moving along normally. It takes the shock of things going wrong in our lives sometimes to jar us, to wake us up, to make us realize that we have become caught in a rut. When things go so wrong that we are jolted from our everyday life, we may also feel like we just want to curl up and die. O.k., maybe it is not always that extreme, but a bad day can at least bring on a strong urge to go to bed and hide.
Jesus says to us the same thing that he said to Martha and Mary. I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, they will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
So what does it mean to live with Jesus? How is it possible to live even though we die and What is it to live and believe and not know death? Is Jesus speaking in riddles? No.
But It is hard to understand life without first understanding death. There is the physical death, when we stop breathing and our heart stops beating. This is usually the first thing that comes to minds when we think of death. Images pop up of being by the bedside of a loved one, or attending a funeral, or visiting a wake. We think of cemeteries and memorial flowers and dedications. But there is another kind of death, the death that happens when we find ourselves going through the motions of life. There is emotional and spiritual death that creeps up on us without our knowing. Our bodies continue to function, but we are leading a life of death.
A Modern day example of this is found In the movie Groundhog’s day. Bill Murray finds that he is stuck repeating the same day over and over again. At first, he is very frustrated and thinks he is going to go insane. No matter what he does he cannot affect or change the events of the day. Then he goes through a period of resignation. He simply goes through the motions with helpless and hopeless, knowing that nothing he does makes any difference. Then, towards the end, he decides to use his time for new skills, he masters the piano and he learns another language. He pursues a young woman, and eventually falls in love. Soon thereafter, he wakes up to find that time has moved on, and it is February 3rd, the day after Groundhog’s Day.
The Movie Groundhog’s day is a comedy, but art imitates life, and I’m sure that there are times in our lives when we roll out of bed and realize that we are repeating the same situation over and over again. Our job can frustrate us because there isn’t anything novel, nothing is new, nothing to be discovered. We face the same challenges, day in and day out. Nothing we do can change the fact that there will always be dirty diapers, or a deadline to meet, board meeting, or endless voice mail and email. It is frustrating. We become trapped.
Yet at other times we find ourselves to be asleep at the wheel. We roll through one day and into the next with only a vague impression of what has transpired in between. We hardly even read the emails or listen to the boss because we know that it doesn’t make a difference. Instead of being frustrated we are simply indifferent.
At other times we don’t realize how dead we are. We can find ourselves sitting at our desk, or operating our equipment, or learning in a classroom and we feel neither frustrated nor indifferent. It’s not like the teacher from the Peanuts cartoon, mumbling words that we can’t understand. Instead we understand perfectly the Jargon that is being put out. We are quite content with our work. We consider it a good day to operate the same equipment day after day without change, without conflict, without variation.
In each of these cases, we become entombed in our daily lives. Whether we are a student or an employee, whether we are a parent or child, whether we are entering adulthood or are retired, we get wrapped up in the way our life is. The status quo for us becomes like the strips of cloth that were wrapped around Lazarus. Each one binds us in place, and we become unable to move.
If we are frustrated with our life, the wrappings of death become the things that cause frustration. We become wrapped up with not getting the support we feel we need from our family. The people at work bind us in their unrealistic expectations. Our teachers embalm us with lengthy assignments. And when we can’t balance all our commitments, not matter what they are, we feel like we are just going to get cremated.
Those of us who lead a dead life of helplessness and hopelessness don’t even feel the wrappings going on around us. Each day adds another layer in the mummification process and we just lay there, still and unresponsive. The baby cries and we have a blank look on our face. The boss is yelling at you and you are making a grocery list in your head. The traffic is backed up for miles but when you get home you can’t recall one detail about the two hour commute.
Probably the most difficult one of all is those of us who are happy with being in the grave. We enjoy our home, our family, our job, and our pet. We see inter-office conflict as a natural phenomenon as people jockey for positions of leadership. Our huge dept is a necessary evil that enables us to live a lifestyle to which we have become accustomed. Family problems can be minimized by taking great vacations or by getting all the right gifts.
Jesus offers us a new life. Not just a resuscitation of our old lives through knowledge or counseling or training or purchases, but an actual resurrection to a newness of life previously not experienced. Jesus tells us that he is that life. We know that we can cry out to Jesus like Martha and Mary did, and we know that we have a God who loves us very much and will weep with us in our times of frustration and helplessness. And in reply, the Word of God calls out to us like Jesus called out to Lazarus in the tomb.
Through word and sacrament we experience the power of Christ. In the words of our scripture and hymns We hear God call us out of the grave that is our everyday life. Even though we have been entombed in our dead lives for some time, and despite the smell of the way things have become, Jesus calls out to us and brings us to life quite different than the life the world offers us.
During worship, We are refreshed with reminders of our forgiveness of sin and remembrance of our baptism. And we are nourished by the meal that Jesus hosts for us as we gather around this table. Here is the place where God tears away the shroud that comes between people. Here is the place where we are reunited with God in the New Covenant.
Yet even when we come out from our old lives, out of the tomb and out of the smell, we are still bound up with the wrappings of death. The relationships that are a part of the old life. The pressures to be like everyone else. The expectation that we will make the deadline, get the job done, and do well on the examination are still all around us. For our sake, Jesus continues to teach us how to pray and guides us in our faith. For our sake, Jesus intercedes for us on our behalf in our relationship with God. So Jesus continues to call to us. Unwrap him, Unwrap her.
This is Jesus calling us to love our neighbor, to help unwrap the old life from one another. We respond to the call of Jesus to minister to one another in the same way the people outside the tomb responded to Jesus in ministering to Lazarus. We reach out to those around us and care for one another. Here in this place, in this community of faith, we have all heard the call to come out of our tombs. We hear the call of Jesus to lead a new life, to be something different than what the world wants us to be. We are called to compassion and love and grace and faith. So we come together to worship the one who calls us. We also support each other. Together we rejoice every time one of those wrappings falls away, a bad habit, an old flaw, a dysfunction. Together we pray for the wrappings that remain on us, the struggles we continue to have as we emerge from the tomb. And sometimes when we think that it might just be easier to lay down again on the slab and pretend to be dead, we pull each other up.
We share the peace of the Lord with one another not just because that is something we do in Church, but because when times are tough and we feel helpless and frustrated we need to know that the peace of the Lord is indeed with us. So we extend our hands, reaching out as a physical sign that we help one another, we are there to remove the bandages, and we are there to assist with emerging from the tomb of a dead life.
We minister to the community in food and shelter and childcare because we know first hand that these are the same issues which keep us in bondage, which wrap around us in complicated ways. We respond to the call of Jesus to come out of the tomb but we also respond to the call of Jesus to unwrap Lazarus our brother or Lazarus our sister who is struggling in their own lives. We do not fear the stink poverty, the stink of homelessness, the stink of multiple diaper changings, because we believe in Jesus, and we know that Jesus will bring new life to those we minister to.
Today is a day that we remember not only our neighbor, but our loved ones who have passed away. On All Saints Day, we remember also those who have gone before us into the physical death. We remember their faith, the grace they were shown and the grace they showed other people. We remember their strength and their courage. We remember that through the Holy Spirit they were baptized into the church of Christ, we remember that they became a part of the communion of saints and were forgiven for their sins. We look forward to the resurrection of the body and give thanks for the life everlasting. AMEN
