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“Tears of Sadness, Tears of Gladness” Today we observe All Saints Day with the wonderful promises of Isaiah and Revelation, that one day God will wipe away all our tears of sorrow. I inherited from my father the waterworks gene. To my children’s great embarrassment I cry easily, even at a well-turned commercial. In the children’s message I asserted that tears are a gift. There are any number of wonderful quotations about tears: 1. Tears are the safety valve of the heart when too much pressure is laid on it. ~Albert Smith 2. ~A Jewish Proverb: What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul. 3. The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep. ~Henry Maudsley. Once again, tears are a gift. Many Sunday School students when asked to say a Bible verse by heart choose John 11:35 because it is the shortest verse in the Bible. “Jesus wept.” “But why did he weep?” we might ask. Yes, his friend Lazarus has died, but Jesus knows he is going to bring Lazarus back from the dead. Why weep? I think the clue comes a couple verses earlier: “When Jesus saw (Mary) weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” The Greek is difficult to translate. But I believe that it is a groan of anger. Jesus’ tears were ones of anger at the forces of illness and disease, of darkness and death. And his tears were ones of sympathy and compassion for the entire human race as we are forced to say goodbye to those we love when they die. The depth of our grief is one measure of our love. Lazarus was resuscitated by Jesus, only to die again. Jesus was resurrected by God, never to die again. Resurrected to eternal life. And the promise is to all who trust in him that we will share in that resurrection. As we look around this sanctuary at the poignant photographs and as we think of the people who have left us let us remember that the time of separation is so short. All Saints Day is a gift of the Church to remind us that our tears of sadness will one day turn to tears of gladness. All Saints Day is a gift of the church. It forces us to think about death. Monday I walked around Bloomington Cemetery. Actually, I didn’t go there thinking about death or All Saints Day. I was looking for a place to soak up some sunshine for half an hour. Once I got there I thought about All Saints Day. It is good to think about death. To keep our daily lives in perspective. After spending some time cleaning leaves and grass off our family gravestones I ambled over to the part of the cemetery with recent graves. It seemed like at least 40% of the new markers were for people younger than I am. Very sobering. That keeps the little annoyances of daily life in perspective. All Saints Day is a gift of the church for us to remember our loved ones that have entered their eternal rest and to give thanks once again for their lives and the love that we shared. All Saints Day is a gift of the church to remind us that these loved ones are not completely gone from us. I visited Nicaragua and El Salvador during the tumultuous 1980s. I observed that in worship services during communion the priest would call out names and the people would shout “Presente!” Present. It was explained that the names were of people who had died in the struggle for justice. And by crying “Presente!” the congregants were saying that the person is still with them. One of the names I recognized was that of Archbishop Oscar Romero. On March 24, 1980 Archbishop Romero was officiating at mass. As he lifted the elements and spoke the words of consecration shots rang out. His blood was mingled with the broken body and shed blood of Christ. The forces of darkness and death thought they had won. They didn’t understand the greater power of resurrection love. In the Apostle’s Creed we say that “We believe in the communion of saints.” In Biblical language the saints aren’t just the superstars of the faith, but all who follow Jesus are termed saints. And “communion” here doesn’t refer specifically to the Lord’s Supper, but to the relationship that we share with Christ and with one another and with all who have gone before and all who will come behind. As the Letter to the Hebrews says, we are “surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1), those who have finished their sojourn on earth and now are part of the Church Triumphant. Like alumni who played the game a long time before, they are in the stands cheering us on. (Adapted from Stephen W. Scott, First Presbyterian Church Statesville, North Carolina) In the meantime we support one another. My very first Sunday as your pastor I was shaking hands after the service. Jen Dahlberg walked through the door, glanced with some disdain at my outstretched hand and then looked me square in the eye and declared, “My husband of almost 62 years died in January, so now every Sunday I get a hug.” Absolutely. In this life we support one another. That is part of being the communion of saints. We support one another and wipe away one another’s tears. As a chaplain with Presbyterian Homes it was a deep privilege to journey with hundreds of people as they made the transition to eternal life. Let me tell you the story of one resident, Harriet. Harriet used a recumbent wheelchair, so she spent her days lying almost flat. Her macular degeneration had progressed to the point where she really couldn’t see at all any more, so she didn’t bother to open her eyes. She was quite alert and we had nice conversations. Harriet took a turn for the worse and we expected that she was on her way out of this world sometime in the next month or two. Her son Bob related this story to me. “One day I wheeled her into the library so we could have some privacy. After a bit of conversation we just sat there in silence, Mom lying in the wheelchair with her eyes closed. All of a sudden she sat up, opened her eyes wide—and they had never looked so blue!—and a giant smile spread across her face. Then she laid back and was gone…Oh, Chaplain Bill, what a gift that was to be with her as she made that joyous passage to life eternal.” One day our tears of sadness shall be wiped away. But tears of gladness shall flow freely. To God be the honor and the glory and the praise, now and forevermore. Amen. |
