Home        Contact     Meetings     Map        Sermons     Messenger  

“Trick or Treat” they say, dressed in their little costumes their parents used to make. Now it’s cheaper to buy them at Wal-Mart.

I have noticed in recent years there are themes based on current movies or famous persons.

Last year Dick Chaney and George Bush were popular.  All Saints, All Souls day, goes back almost as far as the time when the NT was written.

It was initially a time that Christians remembered those that had been killed in the arenas of Imperial Rome. Today we remember them as well as all who have died both near to us and far from us.

But like anything holy and sacred and beautiful, culture quickly transforms that which it finds too painful or too beautiful into that which is comical or at least less of a threat…Like kids dressed up as vampires, pirates, ghouls and goblins.

The same has happened to Xmas. Do you realize that Christmas is two words, Christ’s Mass? It is so commercialized that the baby in the manger is no longer recognizable under all the rubble; instead old St. Nick sits on top of it all… nothing threatening about him. A perfect incarnation of materialism in all its ugliness!

All Saints is the way Christians acknowledge that there is something about life that transcends time... it mocks the materialism of the here and now. 

O God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come is the opening verse of one of Isaac Watt’s great hymns. The last vs. used to read “time like an ever-rolling stream soon bears us all away; we fly forgotten as a dream dies at the opening day”. The last verse now reads... Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all our years away… Much better!

It has been said that we are a death-denying culture. We, not unlike the pharaohs of Egypt who built their pyramids, seem to invest a small fortune in funerals. I have always wondered why we talk in hush-hush tones when we are visiting in a funeral home. Maybe because we take the designation of “slumber room” where the remains are laid out literally… and are afraid the deceased might wake up if we talk too loud.

Caskets, Vaults, Hearses-- all seem to be vestiges of bad theology where the preservation and veneration of the remains take precedence.

My parents were cremated and MJ and I will follow suit. I hope that our next building program will be a columbarium for the repository of ashes for those wishing such a burial.

Question – How many of you have a living will, or healthcare, power of attorney, or medical directives?

If you don’t, your family may have to make decisions that will not only be the most painful, but the most costly, they will ever have to make!

In the past I would offer to go with families when they had to make decisions about a funeral for a family member... You wouldn’t believe how often I have seen people being taken advantage of at a time like that…

That does not mean all funeral directors are unscrupulous, but it only takes one.

Things haven’t changed much. When MJ’s father died last year, I was asked to officiate.

The funeral was held at Our Savior LC in Haddonfield. Since he was a volunteer fireman we met at the fire hall and the urn that held his ashes was placed on the front seat of The Fox: a retired fire truck that is now used for special occasions.

All went well until we came to the end of the service when, just as the assisting pastor and I were about to exit, a color-guard entered from the nave, and for the next 15 minutes we were transported to Arlington National Cemetery, as a full compliment of military personnel, including a bugler playing taps, the unfolding and re-folding and presentation of the American flag to my mother-in-law, took place.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not against military funerals. I have officiated at many. But not inside the sanctuary of a Lutheran church, and not without prior consultation with the host pastor and family… I found out later, that it had all been orchestrated by Mr. Jackson, the funeral director.

I was embarrassed for the host pastor and felt manipulated. This is what I told the funeral director in a letter. He called me and asked what my problem was… you don’t want to know what I told him.

In today’s Gospel we are told there is nothing funny about death. Of all the readings we have each Sunday, these today have the most tears.

Isaiah and Revelation look forward to the day when God will wipe away all tears. Jesus weeps along with Mary and Martha.

Today is not only a day of remembrance, but also a day of celebration of God’s victory over death. 

In the Bible death is neither funny nor pretty. The apostle Paul refers to death as the enemy! It was always so.

Jesus' own death was not less beautiful.  I am reminded of a poem by Dylan Thomas:

     Do not go gentle into that good night,

     Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

     Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

     And you, my father, there on the sad height

     Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night.

    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

“Father if it be Thy will let this cup pass from me”   Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani... My God my God why hast Thou forsaken me?

Even under the best of circumstances when it happens, that all perfect moment between “Why did he have to die too soon and why did she have to linger so long?” Death is still the enemy!

The Good News of Christianity is that the Enemy is vanquished but the fight is not over. Death is still a fearsome warrior.

Lazarus and his two sisters, who lived only a few miles outside of Jerusalem in Bethany, were Jesus' closest friends.

When Jesus got there the two women were so broken up that at one moment they were angry with him for waiting so long to come and in another they said that they knew he could still save him.

Then for the first and only time in the NT Jesus broke down and cried. Then he asked them to take him to the cemetery.

With a loud voice he cried out… no hush-hush here…

LAZARUS COME OUT!  And out he came, all wrapped up like a mummy. Jesus said "Unbind him, and let him go".

When Lazarus opened his eyes and saw Jesus standing there in the daylight, I bet he couldn’t for the life of him tell which side he was on.

We hear of Lazarus again Jn. 12.ff.

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served and Lazarus was one of those at the table. When the crowd learned he was there, they came not only because of Jesus, but also to see Lazarus. So the Chief Priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.

Footnote:

Today we celebrate a death and re-birth called Baptism of a number of our congregational family.

Like Lazarus we were buried and have been raised to new life in Christ.

Like Lazarus, we too will die again and like him we will someday stand beside Jesus, who with God will wipe away those tears, so that there will only be the celebration of eternity.  Amen