Loving God, today we gather with all your saints, looking forward to that time when we will all be together in your presence.  By the power of your Spirit, fill our hearts with the gifts of faith and love, that we might know without a doubt that to be with you is our highest good; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    I remember a man telling me once how in his family, each night at the dinner table the children would each be expected to recite a Bible verse that they had memorized.  And so he and his siblings would search the Bible for the shortest verses they could find.  The one that he always remembered comes from today’s gospel: “Jesus wept” - undoubtedly the shortest verse in the Bible (Jn. 11:35).  Yet, this verse is significant for other reasons, as well.  I cannot think of any other place in the Scriptures where we hear about Jesus weeping.

    I have to imagine that there were plenty of things that Jesus encountered during his time here on this earth that could have led him to tears.  In fact, there may have been many times that simply never got written into the gospels.  Even in today’s gospel, you can almost hear the lament in the way that John writes it.  Jesus is standing there by the tomb, praying - talking to God - and basically saying, “Please, Father.  Help these people to be able to see that you have sent me!”  There had to be at least some frustration in revealing God to people and yet having them unable to see it or to believe him.

    And yet, when Jesus weeps here, it seems to be out of compassion.  He sees Mary weeping, and the others with her weeping, and he knew Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and so it is not that big of a stretch for him to weep out of compassion for those who mourn.  However, I heard another proposal this summer for why Jesus might have been weeping.

    What if Jesus was weeping for Lazarus?  What if Jesus knew what he was asking Lazarus to come back from?  What if Jesus wept because he was asking his friend to come back from the presence of God to spend some more time on this earth and then to die again?  I had never thought of it in this light, but isn’t it at least possible?

    This is Lazarus’ tomb, by the way, in Bethany (show picture).  He has become the answer to the Biblical trivia question: “Who died twice and has three tombs?”  The other two tombs, apparently, are in Cyprus and France.  Interestingly enough, though, we never hear very much about Lazarus after he was brought back from the dead.  There is a dinner later in the gospel of John (12:1-2) where he is present, and there are plots to kill Lazarus, but that’s about it.  Significantly, we never hear a word about what he experienced or saw or heard during those days when he was dead.

    However, isn’t this what people really want to know?  What is it like after you die?  What is heaven like?  Do you go to heaven right after death, or do you go somewhere else?  These are some of the questions that people asked a few weeks back when questions were submitted with the offering.  And so, as we celebrate All Saints Sunday and think about the raising of Lazarus, it is worth at least trying to address these questions.

    First of all, you do need to know that we are not given a lot of details.  However, there are a few things we can learn from the Scriptures, which is essentially what God has chosen to reveal to us.  In fact, just in the readings that we have heard today, we can put together a bit of a picture of the heavenly future of all the saints.

    First off, to be in heaven is to be in the presence of God.  There is no more mystery about what God is like or even where God is to be found.  We are right there, in the presence of God, with no more crying and no more pain and no more death and no more disgrace and no more waiting for God.  Instead, there is rejoicing and wholeness and gladness and light.  It is interesting, too, that there is not only a promise of no more tears, but a picture of God’s love and compassion.  It is as if God will sit with each one who has been crying and will wipe away our tears.

    At the same time, the image of a banquet or a feast is often used – in other words, plenty of everything and a joyful celebration.  One of the only other general impressions that we get of heaven comes from some of the visions in Revelation, where there is joyful worship and thanking and praising God.  However, it is highly unlikely that any of these are complete pictures.  It is more likely that they are similar to the parables where Jesus says, “the kingdom of heaven is kind of like this...”

    These images that we’ve thought about so far come from the end of all things -- the time when there is a new heaven and a new earth.  However, what about the time in between?  What about the time between when somebody dies and the resurrection on the last day?  Some have suggested that it’s kind of like falling asleep and then waking up again at the time of the resurrection.  However, there are at least a few passages in the Scriptures that would suggest otherwise.

    One of these passages is found in the gospel of Luke when Jesus is talking to the criminal on the cross.  When the dying man asks Jesus to remember him when he comes in his kingdom, Jesus doesn’t tell him that he will see him at the end of all things at the resurrection of the dead.  Instead, Jesus is recorded as saying, “today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk. 23:43).

    The apostle Paul also assumes a blessed existence in the presence of God even before the resurrection of the body.  He writes about being “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8).  Of course, then there are those other passages where Moses and Elijah are talking to Jesus and seem to be very much alive, as well as the passage where Jesus points to the burning bush and how “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” speaks from the flames.  Jesus follows this up with how the Lord is God of the living, and not of the dead, and with how to God all of them are alive (Lk. 20:37-38).

    And so, to say that those who have died are with Jesus is not really that much of a stretch.  There is also an interesting passage in 2 Corinthians where Paul writes about a vision (or a revelation) that he was given in which he “was caught up to the third heaven” (12:2).  It was such an amazing experience that he didn’t know if he was actually in his body or out of it.  He also mentions Paradise, which may have been in the third (or highest) heaven, or may have been somewhere else.  Paul then writes of how he heard things there that were too sacred or too holy ever to be spoken here on earth or repeated (2 Cor. 12:4).  This is similar to other writings from the first and second centuries in which those who had been raised from the dead were not allowed to speak of what they had seen and heard beyond the grave.

    In God’s infinite wisdom, it has not been given to us to know all the details, and yet we see “in a mirror, dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12) and catch little glimpses, kind of like looking through the cracks in a wooden gate.  We also don’t get to say “well, this person is going here, and this person is going there,” for Jesus is the one who will judge the living and the dead.

    However, we do know that the one who will be judge is the same one who has loved us with an everlasting love.  We also know that those who have been claimed by God in baptism and who have put their faith in Jesus Christ are among the saints and have nothing to fear beyond the grave and gate of death.  Thanks be to God for his mercy, and for his love.  Amen.

All Saints Sunday(B)                            John 11:32-44
November 4, 2012                                Revelation 21:1-6a
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church                        Isaiah 25:6-9
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

© 2012 Lynne Hutchison  All Rights Reserved