“Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus. Come out!” and the dead man came out, his hands bound with strips of cloth, his face wrapped in a cloth. I imagine it was a very scary scene, for the reality was that Lazarus was still dead. It is when Jesus commanded, “Unbind him, unbind him and let him go,” that Lazarus gained new life.
Jesus is not in the resuscitation business. The Gospel does not administer CPR just in time. That is why the Gospel makes a point in telling us that Lazarus was really dead, and his body was going the way of all flesh. Jesus does not offer to simply extend our life or let us go back to our existence as it was. Last week Bartimaeus did not regain his sight so that he could become a cagier beggar than before. Bartimaeus left his station where he had begged; he even flung his begging cloak aside with his sign and pot for alms still wrapped up in its folds, and followed Jesus as he started to walk to Jerusalem. Lazarus was no longer just an old man with some years added on, but a witness pregnant with promise. Lazarus showed himself as a sign of the future, not as a tour guide of the cemetery.
In one sense the raising of Lazarus was the genesis of All Saints Day. Mary and Martha discovered that the dead were not forgotten by God, that God’s people will not be bound by the chains and tombs of this world. As part of John’s Gospel, this story is one of the seven great signs, which show that God’s new commonwealth is being established. It is Mary and Martha who were privileged to see that Jesus has the power to change our lives right now. That is also why some of the authorities were alarmed, because Jesus made it clear that the Gospel really upsets the schemes of the world. Jesus did not just come to amaze people as a magician like Houdini, who secretly escaped from all his knots. Jesus came to show us the path leading to the loosing of knots for everyone.
All Saints is full of unusual images that are beyond ordinary speech. The Book of Revelation describes a new heaven and a new earth, symbolizing that the totality of all existence, as we know it, will be completely transformed. There will be no sea at all, because the sea was a universal symbol for ancient peoples of chaos and uncontrolled flooding and destruction. Hence the analogies we use to describe this new heaven and earth ultimately fall far short. It is like trying to describe the experience of standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon or near the base of Niagara Falls by showing one a typographical map.
Nonetheless, every year at All Saints’ the picture often comes a little more into focus. The All Saints hymns are some of the best-loved hymns of the church, and are often sung at memorial services that celebrate and give thanks for a loved one’s life.
Who are these like stars appearing, these before God’ throne who stand? Who are these of dazzling brightness, these in God’s own truth arrayed? O blest communion, fellowship divine! We feebly struggle they in glory shine, yet all are one in thee for all are thine. I sing a song of the saints of God, patient and brave and true.”
All Saints hymns are songs of freedom, of becoming unbound from the world’s chains, and of thriving in God’s great communion. They are telling us that we are beneficiaries of their witness, just as Mary and Martha. All Saints reminds us of Jesus’ words to all his disciples, past and present, “I send you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” Look around these walls and you will see testimonials to the harvest we did not plant. Saints are those who reap the harvest of new life, and then today and every day thereafter, sow the seeds of eternity. Saints are those who know that in Christ the world cannot ultimately bind them or separate them from God’s great communion. Saints are those who remember Jesus’ words as he stood before the grave of his friend: “Come forth! Unbind him! And let him go!”
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
