Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "Weep With Those Who Weep"
Date: March 9, 2008
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  John 11:1-45

Last Tuesday would have been my mother’s 86th birthday, so we took the flowers we had on the altar last Sunday out to the cemetery.  As we drove through, on the knoll just south of the Church of Our Fathers, a pastor was standing in front of a casket, surrounded by a group of mourners.  I said to Peggy, “He must be doing a committal service.”

We went on to my mother’s niche, where we cut and placed the flowers.  Then we visited the nearby burial sites of two of our members who died last year, John Hauser and Mary Sandberg.  As we returned to the car, after quite a few minutes, the pastor was still speaking in front of the casket on the lawn a distance away.  I remarked that maybe it wasn’t just a committal service, but a graveside service, which I have done too.

We drove  across the cemetery to the grave of Thelma Bailey, a dear friend and active member here who died in 2006.  There were a lot of cars parked a short distance away, and as we opened our car doors, we immediately heard spirited mariachi music; not by one or two musicians, but a whole band.  They must have really been sending the deceased off in style!  As we returned to the car after putting the flowers from the second altar vase at Thelma’s grave, they were still playing—and not mournfully—as we drove off.

Later that evening, I sat down to review this Sunday’s Gospel lesson in preparation for this sermon.  If you ever wondered just how I arrive at what part of the text I may emphasize, here is a good illustration of how the Holy Spirit works in that process.

I had already decided to use these lengthy stories from John’s Gospels about Jesus’ interactions with various individuals during Lent.  For this week, I didn’t plan to focus on the raising of Lazarus from the dead.  That’s almost a footnote to the story, and comprises a very short portion of the 45 verses.  Instead, I planned to focus on the message from Jesus reprinted on the bulletin cover, which is considered his most brazen self-identifying statement in the gospel so far:  “I am the resurrection and the life… everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  (11:25-26)

We were taught in preaching classes in seminary to reread the text again and again.  Read it silently; read it aloud.  Become familiar with it.  Look for something you didn’t notice before.  And, you know, that happened to me last Monday night.  Because of my visit to the cemetery earlier in the day, and seeing those people who were gathered at two gravesites, all the crowds in John’s story of the death of Lazarus jumped out at me just as if they had been the people at Forest Lawn supporting the family members of the deceased.  And I knew that was to be my new focus.

Many times, I read obituaries in the newspapers that say no services will be held at the request of the deceased.  Sometimes they make that request because they wish to save their family from grieving.  Other times they don’t have a particular religious faith, so they see no value to some ritual gathering at time of death.  And in both cases, I think they are wrong.

Look at the instances of crowd support throughout today’s story.  By the third verse, the sisters Mary and Martha had sent word to Jesus of their brother’s illness.  Think how that happened.  There were no telegrams, no telephones, no cell phones, certainly no text messages.  Who even knew exactly were Jesus was?  But somehow somebody relayed the message to him.  The sisters wanted him to come for Lazarus’ sake, and doubtless for their own.  In the paragraph we omitted today, Jesus finally decides to go to the sisters at Bethany.  In verse 16, Thomas says to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go…”  So they all set out.

We find Lazarus had been dead four days by the time Jesus arrived.  In verses 18 and 19, we are told that many of the Jews from Jerusalem, some two miles away, “had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.”  They were not left alone; even before Jesus arrived, they had friends come to grieve with them.

I have visited in Jewish homes after a death.  It is a tradition that the widow “sit shiva” for seven days.  The mirrors are covered with black cloth.  The widow sits on a stool in the center of the living room to receive friends who come to pay their condolences.

Back East, where calling hours at the funeral home the night before the service was much more of a time-honored tradition than it is in Southern California, family members would stand before the casket to receive friends.  I’ve had more than one person say to me, “I never know what to say.  I’m not sure if I should go.”  My response is to go.  Sign the guest book so they will know you came when they look at it later.  Unless you say something monumentally stupid or wondrously profound, they will not remember what you said.  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” is simple, true, and quite sufficient. 

Meanwhile, back in Bethany, Martha tells Jesus if only he had been there, her brother would not have died.  Jesus responds with his powerful declaration, “I am the resurrection and the life. …everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  Asking if she believes this, Martha confesses that he is truly the Messiah, the Son of God.

Martha calls her sister Mary to come from the house, where the Jews from Jerusalem were consoling her.  “They followed her because they thought she was going to the tomb to weep there.”  Again, we have the image that these sisters were not left alone in their grief, even if their friend Jesus had not been there at the time of death.  They were there to offer comfort, support, prayers, and even to weep with her.  Indeed, John reports “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” 

In Middle Eastern culture, more so than in our cautiously reserved Western culture, people get out their grief with great crying and wailing.  You can even hire professional mourners.  Weeping, crying, sobbing can be a healthy emotion.  Sometimes we hinder our children when we try to console them with the oft-repeated words:  “Now don’t cry.  It’ll be okay.”  Sometimes it won’t be okay.

What follows the arrival of the weeping Jews with sister Mary is what used to be the shortest verse in the Bible.  Both the King James and Revised Standard Version said, in two words, “Jesus wept.”  One of the Walton boys on the classic television show successfully completed his Sunday School assignment to memorize a Bible verse by quoting these two words.  Unfortunately, our New Revised Standard Version in the pews stretches it out to four words:  “Jesus began to weep.”  My thoughts are that if were greatly disturbed, he might already have cried a little.

Jesus goes to the tomb, commands the stone to be rolled away, and calls for Lazarus to come forth.  Doesn’t chapter 11 have a familiar sound, a foreshadowing of chapter 20 which we shall hear on Easter?  I shall not try to explain how Jesus accomplishes this, for I cannot.  It is as unexplainable and miraculous as his own resurrection on Easter morning.

Today’s lesson ends with the crowd still present:  “Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.”

I said earlier that I believe those who express a wish not to have a memorial service of some sort at the time of their death are wrong.  There is little we can do for the one who has died, save to recognize their absence, offer God thanksgiving for their life, and commend them to God’s eternal care.  But such a service is not solely for the dead; it is for the living:  the people who gather here for a funeral or memorial service, the ones I saw last week clustered around two gravesides at Forest Lawn.  If a service of some sort, even a gathering in a home at a set time if the family is not particularly religious, does not occur, you deny those who would comfort you and offer their words of support the opportunity to do so.  And then it becomes awkward three or six weeks after the death and you see them pushing a grocery cart down the aisle toward you at Ralphs.  Do you say anything, or ignore it?  It is always appropriate to say something.  I ran into a minister a while back whom I had not seen since her parent had died nearly a year before.  The first thing I said to her was, “I haven’t seen you since your mother died.  I was sorry to hear about it.”  That sets the stage for them to respond in any way they wish.  “Well, she had been ill for a very long time, and it was a blessing,” or, “I sure miss her.  There were so many things we did together.”

It all comes down to this.  Weep with those who weep.  “Jesus wept.”  Why should we do any less?