Sermon for All Saints Day
November 1, 2009
Texts:  Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 24; Revelation 21:1-6a; John 11:32-44

God will wipe away the tears from every eye.

These are words of potent,
Words that each of us needs to hear,
If not this morning,
Then certainly at some point in each of our lives.

You may need these words
When you are faced with the rawness of immediate death of someone you love,
Or at a time when, trembling, you come face to face with your own mortality,
Or when you are reflecting on those you love, who are no longer with you.

Just this past week,
I listened to a book on CD
Entitled “Remember the Sweet Things”.

It is a memoir by Ellen Greene
Looking back on her twenty year marriage,
Through the lens of annual lists she had maintained,
With descriptions of all the sweet things
That her husband Marsh had done. 

Ellen had started the lists
When she and Marsh first started dating,
As a way to strengthening their new relationship.

She continued the practice throughout their courtship and marriage,
Presenting Marsh with a list each year on Valentine’s Day.

In her lists, Ellen would capture little things
Like his clearing off her car
During a snow storm,
As well as major items,
Such as the way in which Marsh proposed to her.

Her book is a chronology of their life together,
Interspersed with remembrances of the sweet things.

The lists helped to sustain Ellen during the last years of Marsh’s life,
As she cared for him, as he declined with a debilitating illness.

And even during those difficult final years,
Ellen still captured sweet things,
Such as the way Marsh would keep her company in the kitchen,
When he no longer had the coordination
To help with food preparation.

At the Memorial Service, following his premature death,
Ellen’s friend read selections
From the Sweet Things lists.

Ellen’s friend read them,
Rather than Ellen herself,
Because the tears were gushing from her eyes,
Preventing her from speaking. 

Ellen was overcome with grief,
Missing Marsh and longing to be with him again. 

Reading and re-reading the sweet things lists
In the days and weeks after his death,
Seemed a way to preserve their time together,
And a means to banish her tears.

All of us, like Ellen, certainly treasure the memories
Of those dear ones who have come before us.

And on the All Saints Sunday,
We remember the saints among our immediate families,
As well as the friends who have been close to us,
And the members of this community in Christ,
Who graced us with their gifts and talents,
When they shared this physical space with us. 

You only have to look at the All Saints picture gallery,
And the poster of Saints Remembered
To realize how much the memories of these saints mean to us.

And today of all days, we remember how much we miss them. 

However, as Christians, we have hope and promises
That are even more sustaining than mere memories.

We have the hope based in the resurrection,
That reminds us that those who have died in Christ,
Will share in Christ’s resurrection. 

Our texts this Sunday are filled with images
That help us to visualize the promises have been made to us. 

Isaiah paints a picture for us
Of a banquet which the Lord throws for God’s people.

Perhaps this banquet is the one
That will be prepared for us, on the other side.

All will share in this banquet
Particularly, those whose table in this life
Had only meager fare.

A banquet is potent imagery for our relationship with God
Because we associate food
With both comfort and fellowship. 

No one knows better than Lutherans
How important food is to both fellowship and comfort.

Think of the funeral lunches and receptions
Provided by the Women’s Fellowship.

My own family had the opportunity to feel
The comfort of one of these grand feasts this past summer,
As we mourned the loss of Aunt Evelyn.

My family shared tears, stories and memories
While surrounded by the care
Which flowed in the warmth of a funeral lunch. 

And while the promise of an eternal banquet
Heals our aching hearts,
Even more important in this text from Isaiah
Is God’s promise
To swallow up death,
And to wipe the tears from our faces. 

The comfort brought by memories
Such as Ellen’s sweet things lists,
Is eclipsed by the comfort brought
By the love shown by God in the eternal banquet
And God’s gentleness in wiping away our tears.

The text from Revelation this morning,
Restates the promise first made by the prophet Isaiah.
God will indeed wipe away the tears from your eyes.

And God is able to do this because the home of God
Is right here on earth,
Among the humans.

God dwells among us.

Or as Eugene Peterson puts it in his Bible translation, The Message,
God has moved into the neighborhood,
Making a home with men and women.
They’re God’s people
And God is their God.

God will wipe away the tears from all faces.
Death will be no more;
Mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
For the first things have passed away.

We often speak of our loved ones, who have died,
As passing away.

But here in the book of Revelation,
John of Patmos sees in his vision
That what passes away is the mourning, the crying and the pain.

In that new heaven and new earth,
There will be no more tears.  

And although on the earth we currently inhabit,
There are still tears,
On this Saint’s Day,
We experience a kind of temporal “thin place”.

The Celts believed that there were physical thin places,
Where heaven and earth came closer together.

On All Saints Day,
As we look forward to the promised reunion
With those whom we love,
Who have passed from this earth,
In a sense we experience one of those thin places.  

Isaiah’s promise of God’s feast,
In addition to providing comfort food,
Foreshadows the meal Christ prepares for us.
And each Sunday as we celebrate this meal
We experience another one of those thin places.

Because we are united with Christ at the communion table,
And our loved ones have been united with him in the resurrection,
When we come to the table,
Christ provides the link to those whom we so dearly miss

The refrain from a new hymn,
Called “As We Gather at Your Table,
Gives us a window into that reunion.

The words to the refrain are:

“As we gather at your table,
Earth and heaven now embrace,
Souls, united as one body,
Become your dwelling place.”

Earth and heaven embrace,
Providing a touch point to those whom we love.

At the Holy Communion Table,
We have a chance to experience one of those thin places
Where heaven and earth touch.

To commune with Christ,
Is to commune with our loved one.

At the table we experience the vision
Of the new heaven and earth.

Of course, when we are mourning,
Sometimes when we come to the Communion Table,
The memories come crashing in,
Memories such as physically standing next to the one
Who is no longer on this earth.

Sometimes the pain we experience with the memories
Makes us want to stay away from church
Or not come up to the Communion Table.

But to stay away is to deny ourselves
The very comfort which God promises.

You may want to stay away
Because you are afraid that you will cry

And sometimes when we are grieving,
The memories in church or at the Table
Bring tears to our eyes.

And that is OK.

It is OK
Because in communion,
Not only are you re-united with the one who has passed,
But God is truly with you in the bread and wine.
And that sip of wine and morsel of bread
Contain the power of God to comfort you
And wipe away your tears. 

Although we certainly miss our loved ones
And mourn their loss from our daily lives,
We know from God’s Word
That death does not have the last word. 

God will wipe away the tears
And crying and mourning and pain will be no more
Because the first things have passed away,
And there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

Thanks be to God.

Amen