All Saints 2021
It’s been a long slog through pandemic times as we celebrate All Saints Sunday this year. We are weary of grief. Some of us cannot even weep anymore, as Jesus wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. We’ve grown numb to the pain, to the loss.
Some of us are too angry to cry. We’d rather shake our fists at God and yell for God to do something, anything. If God is so omnipotent, why is there no end in sight to this suffering? Does God even care?
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Death really stinks, doesn’t it? I can remember the first time I smelled that smell. A mouse – or some animal – had died in the wall of the apartment where I was living. After a few days the stench was unbearable. I called the landlord, and he just laughed at me. “It’ll go away in a while,” he said. “Just live with it.” Continue reading
November 3, 2019
The year is winding down – before the Halloween candy was off the shelf, the Christmas décor was already out. The garden has been put to bed and the lawn mower has given up its place of honor in the garage to make room for the snow blower. Next Saturday is the Fall Bazaar, and today we will be packing shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. You have less than sixty days left to make good on those New Years resolutions from last January.
But the real sign that time is on the move happened at 2 o’clock this morning, when we switched back from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time. I don’t know about you, but I seem to be more aware of the swift passing of time in the Fall than any other season. It’s a bit of a paradox for me: I get all nostalgic, thinking back over fond memories, even as I begin to anticipate the coming of another year’s opportunity. Continue reading
Have you already taken down your Christmas decorations at home? We haven’t. We leave them up as long as possible. In fact, one year, we barely got Christmas put away in time for Ash Wednesday! I grew up in a church that did not really observe the liturgical seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost. For us, Christmas was a day, or two at most, if you counted Christmas Eve. The twelve days between Christmas Day and Epiphany were nothing more than a vacation from school. Continue reading
Pharaoh murders innocent babies, but Moses escapes in a basket.
Herod murders innocent babies, but Jesus escapes into Egypt.
Rival factions in South Sudan have killed more than a thousand, but over 100,000 have escaped into neighboring countries until the conflict can be resolved.
How, exactly, is this good news?
Biblical scholars say, “You have to keep the Big Picture of God’s story in mind.” I get that. I understand that God does not desire for anyone to perish, but for all to believe and to have eternal life. I know that Bad Things Happening to Good People has more to do with our sinful human condition than God’s will for us. If I want to blame someone for atrocities, I might as well go all the way back to Adam and Eve. There are times when I’d like nothing better than to pound their chests with my fists and yell, “What were you thinking!”
All that knowledge doesn’t help much when I sit next to a woman whose son died, and she asks me, “How could a loving God let this happen?” A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more (Matthew 2:18). How do you comfort a grieving parent who refuses to be consoled?
You don’t.
Just because I can’t explain it doesn’t mean I can shrug off the sorrow. Just because I know God has a bigger plan in mind for eternity doesn’t diminish the pain of the here and now. It’s a dangerous thing to be human, to be vulnerable, to face the fact of our mortality. The Good News is not always sweetness and light. That pretty baby in the manger grows up to die on a cross. God has to watch his own Son, his only Son, die a horrible death. And God grieves.
God grieves all the Herods and the Pharaohs and the murderers of innocent children. God grieves us when we turn away from him. God grieves as only a bereft parent can grieve. How do you comfort a grieving parent who refuses to be consoled?
You don’t.
You weep, too.
Unspeakable sorrow.
Unimaginable pain.
Loss. Tragedy.
None of these words has enough depth of meaning when I think of the suffering more than two dozen families are experiencing as I write this. My petty little sorry-I’ve-been-too-busy-to write-anything planned bit of cheerfulness just got swept away in the horror of death. Children, gone. Like that – just, gone.
Where is the invitation to wait for the coming of our Lord in glory, amid all this senselessness? It is here, amid this senselessness. Precisely amid this senselessness, we wait. We hope. We struggle to comprehend. We sorrow for the brokenness that could allow such a terrible thing to happen. We remember that Herod slaughtered little boys when Jesus was born, just as tragically, just as senselessly. And Rachel wept, as we weep now.
Loss. Tragedy.
Unimaginable pain.
Unspeakable sorrow.
Within the past 48 hours, tragic death has touched three members of my far-extended family. These weren’t people I know, for my relationship to them is very tangential – a cousin-in-law’s step-daughter’s cousin, for example – but their deaths on or near Thanksgiving Day are stark reminders that life itself is something to be cherished, something for which to thank God.
Death doesn’t ever wait for a convenient time, and the number of tragedies connected to holiday celebrations seems to climb each year. Or maybe I just notice them more as I grow older. But this connection between joy and sorrow is nothing new. The Psalmist often combined lament and sorrow with praise and thanksgiving. The paradoxical connection between expressing personal pain and giving glory to God in all circumstances weaves its way throughout the biblical narrative. Grief and rejoicing are not such strange bedfellows. This is why a New Orleans funeral dirge turns into an amazingly joyful Dixieland dance when the saints go marching in.
As your holiday weekend draws to a close, as the shopping spree ends and the turkey leftovers move into smaller containers in the refrigerator, please take a moment to look around the room at those who share your day-in, day-out routines, and thank God for them. Show them how much you love them. Show them how much God loves them. Take nothing for granted. Life is precious. Thanks be to God.
Always. Be. Reforming.
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