Believing is Seeing - All Saints' Sunday

Brad Sullivan
All Saints’ Sunday, Year B
Thursday, November 4, 2012
St. Mark’s, Bay City
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44

“It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.  This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Isaiah 25:9)  Isaiah gives us beautiful images of God’s victory over death, when God will swallow up death for ever and wipe away every tear.  On All Saints’ Day and All Saints’ Sunday, we’re celebrating God’s victory over death, celebrating the promises that God has given us. 

We’re celebrating the lives of the saints, both those who are models for the church and those who are models only for us, our loved ones who have died and yet are alive in the Lord.  We’re celebrating God’s victory over death in them…and we’re waiting.

On Thursday, All Saints’ Day, I addressed these same readings with this idea of waiting for God.  We’re waiting for God’s ultimate victory over death.  God’s already won that victory in Jesus’ resurrection, but we’re still waiting for its final inauguration.  We’re still waiting for the day of joy and gladness which Isaiah describes. 

Martha and Mary were waiting for Jesus to come heal their brother Lazarus, and Jesus, it turns out, was waiting for Lazarus to die in order not to heal him, but to raise him from the dead, to show us that God really is more powerful than death.  It seems that Jesus was also often waiting for Mary and Martha to trust in him. 

When Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days,” Jesus replied, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”  Trust in me, Jesus was saying.  Trust in me, Jesus is still saying.  Trust in me, and if you can’t, I’ll wait for you until you can.  Much of scripture refers to us waiting on God, but there is also much that speaks of God’s patience, God waiting on us, God’s patience and steadfast love for us.

Then we also have the idea of us waiting to see our loved ones again.  When our loved ones die, we believe they are alive with God in Christ, and we believe we will be reunited with them as we are fully united with God.  Might, then, they also be waiting for us.  Might the saints of our lives be waiting for us with as much anticipation and excitement as we are waiting for them?  Might they, with us and God together all be waiting for God’s final victory over death? 

I love that thought, that we’re all together, bound with God in Christ.  Our loved ones are alive with God in Christ, and we are made one with God in Christ.  While we’re waiting for the day which Isaiah describes, we’re also already one with our loved ones, one with the saints because we are one with Jesus.  That was his prayer to his disciples, that they would be one, just as the Father and he are one. 

We have these wonderful promises from Jesus, and yet, how do we know these promises are true?  Doubt is something with which many of us wrestle. Like Martha and Mary, we find disappointment in our lives and sometimes we may wonder if God’s final victory over death really is true.  How do we know?  Well, in any scientifically provable way, we don’t know.  We don’t.  We believe, and we let that belief to be real enough to change our lives. 

Our belief colors the world in which we live.  In one world, there is no resurrection, no life after death, no ultimate victory of God.  In another world, there is resurrection, there is life after death, and there is God’s ultimate victory.  I don’t know in a scientifically provable way which world is true, but I do know in which world I’d rather live.  I know the hope, and peace, and courage which believing gives me.  I don’t know, but I believe.  Some of us have family and friends who no longer believe.  Perhaps the death of a loved one is what led that person not to believe.  Maybe talking about our belief not as knowledge but as belief which gives hope, peace, and courage is a way we can explain our faith to those who don’t share it.

Believing that we truly are one with the saints and one with God can be difficult, at times, because we generally cannot feel or hear or see the saints or God, but what did Jesus tell Martha?  “See the glory of God that you may believe?”  No.  Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”  Believing is seeing. 

Believing in the resurrection of Jesus, believing in the raising of Lazarus, believing in God’s victory over death gives us hope and joy, peace and courage even as we wait.  As Paul writes in Romans 5:

…we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.  And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

We’ve been given a beautiful promise of a glorious future in which death is no more, in which God will destroy the shroud that is cast over all peoples, and he will swallow up death forever and wipe away the tears from all faces.  Then it will be said, this is our God for whom we have waited, let us rejoice.  In the mean time, we all wait together.  The communion of saints wait together with us, united together with God in Christ as God waits for us and we for God. 

So, with this idea of all of us waiting together, I’m going to end with the words of a song called, “I Will Wait by a band called Mumford and Sons, off their new album, “Babel”. 

And I came home

Like a stone
And I fell heavy into your arms
These days of darkness
Which we've known
Will blow away with this new sun

And I'll kneel down

Wait for now
And I'll kneel down
Know my ground

And I will wait, I will wait for you

And I will wait, I will wait for you
Amen.