Listen to Sermon
Pastor Tom Johnson, November 4, 2018
Have you ever thought about why we humans cry? If you are cutting onions or have something in your eye, your tear ducts will open up and will try flush the eyes of whatever is irritating that very sensitive area of the body. Why do we cry when we are sad, grieving or, for some of us, when we are laughing? The scientific community is not exactly sure. They have found stress hormones and painkillers in tears. Some think if we are too happy or too sad tears have a way of stabilizing a person’s mood which also impacts the heart rate and breathing. Some also think that tears elicit sympathy from those around us. We, in a sense, invite others to share our extreme sadness or happiness.
Anatomy of lacrimation
In our Gospel reading, Jesus begins to weep. The eternal Son of God who has become human share this very human experience. His friend Lazarus is dead. Jesus shares the grief that his sisters Mary and Martha feel. Even though he knows he is about to raise their brother from the dead, he validates their sense of loss by his tears. In our readings from Isaiah and Revelation, we are given a vision of the Kingdom of Heaven where God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” God validates our tears for a lifetime of loss and grief. We have invited him in to our world of pain and sadness. God sees us. We are not invisible. Our crying has become prayer. He has heard our pleas for sympathy. Even the Apostle Paul remembers the tears of Timothy in his letter to him in Scripture. Those tears remind Paul to pray for his friend and fellow shepherd in the faith. Tears are prayer. Tears are a call to prayer. And they are also a call to action. Just as he told the Israelites who spent 400 years in slavery in Egypt, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and bring them...to a good and broad land” (Ex 3:7,8).
But why did it take 400 years for God to act on those tears? Why did Jesus come after Lazarus had died and not before? And why this promise of his wiping away our tears at the end of all time and the beginning of eternity? We want relief and comfort now. And perhaps that is why we do not mourn, grieve, or shed tears as much as we ought to. In a way, we are naming our pain and loss by our crying. We may think it is easier to simply live in denial and plug up those tear ducts and emotions. We take it upon ourselves to stop the crying and wipe away our own tears and pretend that everything is all right. It can be harder to make ourselves vulnerable in front of others and even before the true and living God. God sees our grief even without our tears. He hears our groaning that is too deep for words. He has heard all four hundred years of collective grief. He knows every loss and sad-ness in each individual’s lifetime. Psalm 56 (v. 8) even says that God keeps our tears in a bottle—he puts our tears into the archives until the end of time. It is for a lack of faith that we do not cry before God as Jesus cried before a grieving family. Or it is because of pride that we do not want to be seen as weak or handle it ourselves without the help of others and even without the help of God.
Today we name our loss as a Christian community—as a family of faith. We utter the names of individuals that have passed from this vale of tears into mountain of God’s paradise. We chime the bell to validate our loss and to celebrate God’s gain. It is good for the soul to shed our tears together. We are in a safe place. It is okay to be angry, lonely, sad, questioning, accepting. It is okay to not feel those emotions in that order. It is okay to unload it all upon God just as Scripture says, “Cast all your anxie-ties upon God, because he cares for you” (1 Pet 5:7). Today we have a vision of all those we have lost. God has wiped every tear from their eyes. Death is no more. There is no mourning or crying in that great heavenly host that no one can number. And here is the amazing truth. You and I are among their number. All these saints stand outside time and space. We are the ones gathered from all over the world from every tribe, nation, tongue and people.” We are the those gathered from the beginning of time, now, until the end of time. This is not just a future hope. It is a present reality. Just as Jesus weeps fully confident in his own power to raise Lazarus from the dead. So we weep as those fully confident in Jesus who died and rose again. Our tears acknowledge our very real pain today but in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead.
The visions from Isaiah and Revelation and the words of Jesus assure us that there is a great reunion to come. And that great reunion has already begun. Our loss has already led to gain. Our sadness has turned to joy. Our tears have begun to be wiped away by the nail scarred hands of our Savior. Every week we have a foretaste of this feast to come when we gather together in the name of Jesus who wept for us, died for us, and rose again from the dead for us. Each week we hear that profound reminder, “Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven we laud and magnify Your glorious name, evermore praising You and saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of pow’r and might: Heaven and earth are full of Your glory. Hosan-na. Hosanna. Hosanna in the highest.’”
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