The Extraordinary Funeral of an Ordinary Saint

The Extraordinary Funeral of an Ordinary Saint

John 11.17-26

Funeral for Christel Sainsbury

The novelist George Eliot observes that, “The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” Though we are in Southern California, the mecca of movie-stardom and epicenter of the entertainment industry, on the very night of the Emmy Awards at that, we have gathered today at just such an unvisited grave as Eliot envisions. Christel Sainsbury did not live a famous life, and she has not died a famous death, and the world will not come in pilgrimage to her tomb.

In our text for today, we also attend to such an unvisited grave. We could certainly call Lazarus’ actions “unhistoric,” and his life a “hidden” one. That we read of in Scripture, Lazarus never actually did a single thing; he never even speaks. In fact, the only action unambiguously attributed to him and him alone comes in verse eleven of this same chapter: he died. Left to his own devices, Lazarus would not leave so much as a fingerprint on the pages of history, whether sacred or divine.

Yet everyone knows the name and the story of Lazarus for the single reason that Jesus attended his funeral. To be more accurate, everyone knows his name and story for the single reason that Jesus interrupted his funeral. I take a certain amount of comfort in the fact that Jesus messed up the established order of worship. Today we are following the lovely Lutheran funeral liturgy and, as a Baptist, I feel awkward, like a high school jock in a rented tuxedo - constantly afraid I’ll split a seam or spill gravy on the lapel. But Lazarus’ funeral had a liturgy of its own, in which, as far as I can tell, Jesus plays four roles, the last one a true seam-splitter.

First, we see Jesus as the object of blame. Twice! Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. It might not shock us to hear that from Martha, the older and bolder sister, but even our meek little Mary bleats out the protest. They have a point: Jesus could have intervened and chose not to. In fact, John goes out of his way to make it clear that the Lord deliberately decided to let Lazarus die! And notice what Jesus does in response to their complaint; better still, notice what Jesus doesn’t do: he doesn’t rebuke, and he doesn’t retreat. I like that; it tells me two things: It tells me that grief and Godliness are not antithetical, and it tells me that Jesus fears no danger from our anger in the face of death.

Then, Jesus assumes a second role as he becomes the preacher. Your brother will rise again. Martha reacts the way anyone would - and should! - to this cliché, which comes across the same way as statements like, She’s in a better place! “Sure, Jesus, sure. One day, someday, when the Kingdom of Heaven comes and the righteous rise to eternal life, sure. Every good Jew knows that! But that doesn’t help much right now.” Jesus responds with a complex and creative bit of theology: He tells Martha that in him, that future has become the present. His raising of Lazarus is not just a favor for a friend! It is a declaration that resurrection does indeed await all who put their faith in Christ. In this moment, that great day that is out there rushes forward and stands right here for all to see.

I take great comfort in that: In this moment, Jesus preaches the funeral sermon of every Christian saint. I’m grateful for that! In offering the hope of resurrection at a time like this I feel a little like Father Mapple in Moby Dick, when he tells his congregation, “How gladly would I come down from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit, and listen as you listen, while some one (sic.) of you reads me” a sermon. I know that promises of resurrection - physical return to life in a body far more solid and real than this one we bury today - sound like standard-issue Sunday school platitudes, but I dare to utter them because I have the warrant of Jesus’ words and action and, greater still, of his own resurrection.

Of course, that may take a while. It may not! It may happen before we sound the final amen in this place. But it may not; we may have years to live in the gap. That is why it is important to note that next, Jesus becomes a mourner. Jesus began to weep. The New Revised Standard Version gives the proper nuance to the verb tense here: Jesus started weeping and kept on weeping. These were not a couple of photo-op tears ginned up in case anyone nearby had a cell phone and planned to post the video on social media. This is real sorrow! I like that: Jesus lingered in the airless, lightless sinkhole between death and resurrection to spend time in our own experience of grief. How long did it last? Well, in one sense, probably a few minutes; but in another sense, it lasted for the entire duration of grief, every second of the time between every death of every saint and the resurrection on the last day. One does not really “get over” grief; one gets on with it, and Jesus walks that entire pathless pilgrimage by our side.

And now we see Jesus in his fourth, final, and greatest role at this funeral: Jesus is Lord. This is where things go off the rails. Anger, a sermon, tears - they all nestle neatly alongside one another on the printed order of service, but here Jesus undoes all the hard work of the undertaker and shakes the life insurance industry to its very foundations. Lazarus, come out! That is the promise of every Christian funeral! Today death reigns. Today grief strangles our joy. Today we close the oaken door that will one day lock us all in and shut us up under seventy-two cubic feet of sod. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get out! Whether as famous as Peter or as anonymous as Lazarus, each of us dies in the certain expectation of the day when the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. (1 Th 4.16)

In that day we will learn the full power of the hope held out by Saint Julian of Norwich, that, “we will at last see clearly the reasons for everything (God) has done; and evermore we will see the cause of all that he has permitted. And the bliss and the fulfillment shall be so deep and so high that all creatures, for wonder and marvel at it all, will have so great and reverent a dread for God, surpassing all that has been seen and felt before, that the pillars of heaven shall tremble and quake.”

I said that had Jesus not raised him, we would probably never have heard of Lazarus. That may be so, but there is one other unique feature which should cause his name to resound throughout history and theology: he was Jesus’ friend. He whom you love is ill (v.3); See how he loved him! (v.36). Oh, I know, Jesus loves everybody; as Voltaire quipped, “It’s his job.” But here John does not use the agape word for love, the unmerited and unmeritable outflow of love based only on God’s choosing. He uses the filia word, the friendship word. Yes, Jesus loved Lazarus unconditionally, but he also found something in him to like, to enjoy. And just a little bit later, he uses it of all of his disciples, and thus of all of us! (Jo 15.13-15)

So Lazarus will not ultimately be known in Heaven for rising from the dead; that will be true of everybody! Lazarus will be known, yes, as a redeemed soul in Christ - but that also will be true of everybody. But Lazarus will be known - Lazarus will be famous - for things about  and him alone that, in the full glory of his redeemed humanity, will forever delight his Lord. Jesus will get a kick out of him in the presence of the angels for all of eternity! And so Our Lord now delights in the specific beauty of Christel Sainsbury. And we will, if we wish, all be unique in the exact same way! Like good children - not like a conceited child but like good children - we will take great and undisguised pleasure in being praised! We will be an ingredient in the divine happiness! We will be delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son!

And so as we view the unremarked life and visit the unremarkable grave of Christel Sainsbury, we comfort ourselves in the words of Malcolm Guite’s sonnet:

The ordinary saints, the ones we know,

Our too-familiar family and friends,

When shall we see them? Who can truly show

Whilst still rough-hewn, the God who shapes our ends?

Who will unveil the presence, glimpse the gold

That is and always was our common ground,

Stretch out a finger, feel, along the fold

To find the flaw, to touch and search that wound

From which the light we never noticed fell

Into our lives? Remember how we turned

To look at them, and they looked back? That full-

-eyed love unselved us, and we turned around,

Unready for the wrench and reach of grace.

But one day we will see them face to face.

And that is the eternal destiny of Christel Sainsbury. By God’s rich grace shed forth in Jesus Christ, may it be yours, and may it be mine. Amen.