CELEBRATING:
SERMONS
29 - March 2009
A sermon delivered by Rev. Gordon How
March 29, 2009 -- Lent - The Weeping Season
Along one aisle of St. Paul's Cathedral London there
is a memorial statue of John Donne - the Jacobean, 17th
Century poet and preacher. Later in life, he was appointed
Dean of St. Paul's . In 1623 Donne became very sick
with a near fatal illness - and in the time he struggled
to recover, not knowing if he would live or die, he
wrote "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions"
from which comes this famous quotation: "All mankind
is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies,
one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated
into a better language; and every chapter must be so
translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon,
calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation
to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more
me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No
man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death
diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee."
There we have two of the most famous lines in the
English language: "No man is an island" and
"For whom the bell tolls." But John Donne
remarked that is was elsewhere that you would find the
one short verse for which there is no larger text. I
will get to it a few minutes…
Shifting gears, some folks are very upset - indeed,
even in mourning - these days because of all the change
that has taken place in the past few decades. Change
everywhere - in what we eat, how we are entertained,
how we live as families, in energy sources, in electronics,
in medicine and surprise, surprise, in the church. For
example, we in the church have been heavily implicated
in some of these changes - to name but three: the individualism
in matters spiritual (who needs corporate worship when
you can commune with God on a mountain?); secondly,
there is now a vast array of options for social and
recreational activities on Sundays (who really wants
to be in church when they could be walking in the green
fields or beside the blue waters?) and thirdly, the
pop-atheists who are laughing all the way to the bank
what with their publishing royalties (their position
is that you can better address the mystery of life by
claiming there isn't a mystery of life.)
These three things directly challenge us on Sunday
mornings as we strive to continue to offer substance
and praise in worship. But there are folks who grieve
the losses in numbers which these things apparently
cause. Now, it may be small-minded of me not to cry
about these losses. I tend to do my own crying at a
more personal level. It isn't about things sociological
nor political that make me cry. My tears tend to come
to the fore when I yearn for friends and family lost
to me, either through death. For example, I find that
I am getting more and more emotional at Memorial Services
which I conduct than only a few years ago. I really
don't know how long I can take it.
Therefore, I shouldn't be surprised that I am moved
by the touching vignette in our Gospel reading in which
Jesus wept when his close friend, Lazarus, died. Jesus
was often a guest at the home of Lazarus and his sisters,
Mary and Martha. It was a place of sanctuary for him,
a haven of warmth among good and trusting friends. The
Gospel says that Jesus "loved" Lazarus. Jesus
was about thirty years old, and perhaps Lazarus was
about the same age. They were buddies. Then Lazarus
died, and naturally Mary and Martha sent for his friend,
Jesus, knowing he would want to be there.
However, it was several days before Jesus got to Bethany
and John tells us that by the time Jesus and his disciples
arrived there Lazarus "had already been in the
tomb four days". People had already assembled for
a funeral. Martha was not pleased with Jesus' tardiness
and told him so! The story is told in great detail,
but the dramatic conclusion to the story is Jesus' command
to take away the stone from Lazarus' tomb, and when
they had done so he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus,
come out!" And then, without a trace of irony,
John writes, "The dead man came out (and) ...Jesus
said to them, 'Unbind him, and let him go.'"
The story is not without traces of humour. A "dead
man" emerges from a dark tomb into the bright Palestine
sunshine, blinking rapidly, and no doubt disoriented!
Then he sees Jesus standing in the light, and perhaps
for a moment Lazarus is not sure which side of death
he's on! Was he entering eternity or returning to his
earthly existence? Sometimes people who go through near-death
experiences are not completely happy when doctors pull
them back. They relate stories of seeing a bright figure
standing in the light, and starting to go toward that
figure, but then their journey was interrupted when
the heart defibrillator yanked them back to this world!
Perhaps Lazarus had a similar experience, and when he
saw Jesus standing in the light he may have asked, "Is
this heaven?" and Jesus replied, "Nope, it's
Bethany."
There is a fascinating mixture of the sublime and
the practical in this story. There is the raising-to-life
of a four-day-old corpse, and at the same time attention
to practical details, like the smell of decay. What
I want to focus on is not the mystery of the resurrection
- which is, after all, the climax to which the Gospel
is relentlessly heading - but rather, on the sadness
of Jesus, the grief and mournfulness of Jesus. John's
gospel says it simply, in two words: "Jesus wept."
And that is the verse in the English language about
which John Donne said: "there is no larger text"!
"Jesus wept."
Yes, it may be the shortest verse in the Bible - one
even I can memorize - but it speaks volumes. John tells
us even more about Jesus' emotional state. John tells
us that when Jesus saw those around him weeping, his
heart was touched, ...he was deeply moved." And
when the people saw Jesus weeping, they said, "See
how much he loved (Lazarus)!" A weeping Saviour
may be an anomaly to some Christians, but it is a vivid
indication of Jesus' humanity and the depth of his emotions.
Jesus wept because he felt, and feels, our pain and
suffering. He wept because he had a tender heart, a
heart open to the pain of others. The Scriptures tell
us that Jesus also cried when he prayed for others.
Hebrews tells us that "in the days of his flesh,
Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud
cries and tears, to the one who was able to save...."
This is a saviour who is able "to sympathize with
our weaknesses, (because he) ...in every respect has
been tested as we are...."
I am moved by the story of Jesus and the loss of his
close friend, Lazarus. This is a Jesus I can understand,
a Jesus who hurts like I do, and has compassion for
those who are hurting. The Gospels tell another story
of Jesus in tears. As Jesus and his entourage approached
Jerusalem, Luke tells us that Jesus wept over the city!
The mournfulness of his response to Jerusalem is not
as personal as his grief over Lazarus, but his feelings
of sadness seem deep, nonetheless. "As he came
near and saw the city," Luke tells us, "he
wept over it, saying, 'If you ...had only recognized
on this day the things that make for peace! ...you did
not recognize the time of your visitation from God.'"
This occasion for Jesus' tears occurred, ironically,
during Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. All around
him people were celebrating! And we will celebrate it
again next Sunday, Palm Sunday. As Jesus came down from
the Mount of Olives crowds lined the way, shouting praises
and expressing their adulation. And then Jesus stopped
the parade, looked out over the city, and began to weep,
his weeping on this occasion was a mournfulness, perhaps,
for what could have been.
Grief over a city seems less personal than the grief
one suffers over the loss of a good friend or loved
one. Perhaps it is a vast landscape of sadness. Years
ago we lived in little Tahsis on the West Coast of Vancouver
Island. We lived in a house at the top of a hill (the
road up to it was named: Cardiac Climb) and when I went
home in the evening I would turn around and look back
over the village, sparkling lights scattered in a vast
landscape of mountain darkness which rose up from the
miles of inlet reaching south to the open sea. While
I never wept over it, that moment of looking back over
the village always inspired feelings: feelings of concern
for that place and its people; deep appreciation for
the coastal landscape; a deep sense of loneliness engendered
by the isolation of our community; thoughts of family;
thoughts of friends; thoughts of what could have been;
thoughts that encompassed a telling sadness about life.
I will confess to a leaning toward melancholy, but
I'm not one of those who feels that I'm only alive if
I've been put through an emotional wringer. A little
like the fellow who told a friend who had been absent
from church, "We had a wonderful worship service
last Sunday; everybody cried!" I don't require
my emotions to be tugged this way and that to feel that
I've met God. In fact, I'm suspicious of people who
could cry at the drop of a coin in the offering plate.
Jesus' mournfulness was not unlike the mournfulness
of the prophets, who were caught between empathy with
God, on the one hand, and compassion for their fellow-citizens,
on the other. Jeremiah, for example, cried to those
in power: "...if you will not listen, my soul will
weep in secret for your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly
and run down with tears...." Jeremiah frequently
called upon God with tears. "O that my head were
a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night for the slain of
my poor people." Recall the verse from Psalm 130:
"Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!"
Someone has said that in the weeping of Jesus, John
is showing us the weeping of God. The grieving of God.
The groaning mournfulness of God. A startling view of
God to some. And yet it makes sense that what made Jesus
sad are the same things that might make God sad.
A little girl stayed out at play much longer than
she was supposed to stay, and when she got home her
mother scolded her and demanded an explanation! The
child said that one of her playmates had broken her
doll and she stopped and helped her fix it. This did
not satisfy her mother, who wondered why on earth it
took two hours to fix a broken doll. To which the child
replied, "Well, I couldn't fix it, but I sat down
with her and helped her cry."
Some things are beyond fixing, and I find it a great
comfort to think that God weeps with us in our sorrow.
There are many times when tears are not enough, but
there are times when tears are quite enough. Lent is
the season of the church year that might appropriately
be called "The Weeping Season." And is an
appropriate occasion to get in touch with our sadness,
to mourn our losses, and to shed our tears. Lent is
a time to tune our harps to mourning, to ask ourselves:
What makes me sad? What makes me weep?
As I thought about that this week, I received a lesson
through a brief meditation written by Rachel Remen,
reflecting on the nature of an oyster. "An oyster,"
she writes, "is soft, tender, and vulnerable. Without
the sanctuary of its shell it could not survive. But
oysters must open their shells in order to 'breathe'
water. Sometimes while an oyster is breathing, a grain
of sand will enter its shell.... Such grains of sand
cause pain, but an oyster does not alter its soft nature
because of this. It does not become hard and leathery
in order not to feel. It continues to entrust itself
to the ocean, to open and breathe in order to live.
But it does respond. Slowly and patiently, the oyster
wraps the grain of sand in thin translucent layers until,
over time, it has created something of great value in
the place where it was most vulnerable to its pain.
A pearl might be thought of as an oyster's response
to its suffering."
So, I say, go ahead and let his season of Lent, especially
in its closing days, slowly but surely wrap the grains
of sand which cause you to weep in layers of God's Easter
love. For the Psalmist who cries ""Out of
the depths I cry to you, O Lord!" Goes on to declare:
"For with the Lord there is steadfast love."
Amen.
Sermon Resources: John 11:1-3, 17-35 D. Friesen; R.
Remen
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Shaughnessy Heights United Church
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each other in our diversity and reaching out to all
who seek God’s love.
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