AND WHAT GOD LOVES,
GOD LOVES EVERLASTINGLY
A Bereavement Service Homily
All Souls Day
“What God creates, God loves, and what God loves, God loves everlastingly.”
Today we pause to remember our loved ones who have parted from our midst in the course of the last year, as well as those whose passing occurred at an earlier time but whose loss is still so keenly felt by us as if it were just yesterday. We stop and contemplate their lives as they lived among us. And we acknowledge our pain and our need for God's grace and comfort.
“If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels, and if you haven’t, you cannot possibly imagine it.” That quote is from the opening paragraph of the first book of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The author, who writes dark tales for children under the pen name “Lemony Snicket,” explains that this is how the Baudelaire children felt when they became the Baudelaire orphans after both their parents died in a house fire.
Those words of how difficult it is to convey a sense of loss fit with today’s gospel reading. Martha is hurt when she sees Jesus. She says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Then she calls for her sister Mary who repeats that same accusation, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
If I had continued reading our Gospel further, we would have heard John tells us that, “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’”
Then, in that shortest verse in the Bible, we are told that “Jesus wept.”
Jesus, the Son of God, weeps at the grave of his friend. We too weep over the graves of those we love. This evening, at this bereavement service, we remember those we love who have died. That remembrance comes with love and joy-filled memories, but it also comes with sorrow.
It is a sorrow that doesn’t go away. Real grief stays with you. In fact, not only can one not expect grief to go away completely, we also shouldn’t want it to because grief reflects our sense of commitment and love that we had for the person. And so, we pray - not for an end to the grief - but for an unbearable sense of loss to be replaced by a sorrow we can bear. And in this, we are helped by the hope of the resurrection.
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” As we approach the death of a loved one, our faith informs and transforms our view of it. They are not gone . . . only the body dies, the spirit lives with God and goes home to be with Jesus. They have gone home, home to where they are welcomed and forgiven and loved . . . loved more than we could ever imagine. Grief is NOT a lack of trust or faith. We can and do experience profound grief and still believe deeply that our loved ones are at home with God. They are two different things. One is our response to our loss . . . the other to their gain.
As I mentioned earlier, the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events, writes, “If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels, and if you haven’t, you cannot possibly imagine it.” That’s so true, but scripture tells us that in Jesus, God knows how it feels because Jesus experienced real grief. “Jesus wept.” The shortest line in Scripture, but also perhaps the most profound, because it reminds us that God can identify with our experience, that in becoming human, God was and is with us in Jesus in a way that caused him to experience the depths of human pain and loss. God can readily imagine grief because he himself has known that pain firsthand.
God is not distant and reserved. God is close, caring, and compassionate. Scripture tells us that the time is coming when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes and when even death itself will be defeated. Yet, in the here and now, there are many tragedies, personal and even national or international, which cause people to question their faith.
In all these cases one hears people ask, “Where is God?” And the answer is “with us.” God was there when the towers fell on September 11, 2001. God was there when wildfires recently torched our western states. God was there with the people of Afghanistan in the midst of their sufferings at the hands of the Taliban. God is with us as we still deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. God is there in the tragedies, large and small that have us wondering why. God is there in the midst of suffering, present with those in pain, as one who learned the depths of human suffering while living among us.
Knowing that Christ knows how it feels to experience the death of a loved one, we can hear more clearly Jesus call to put away the fear of death. Jesus calls “Come Out!” Come out from the grave. Grief is real, but that loss is not the end. Don’t let grief overwhelm you. Grab hold of the sure and certain hope of the resurrection that comes through faith in Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, “Unbind him and let him go” to those around Lazarus, and he says the same to us. We are to be unbound, set free from the power of death. For even as we find death in life, we find life in death. We know that Jesus is resurrection and life, and those of us who believe in him, even if we die, we will live.
“What God creates, God loves, and what God loves, God loves everlastingly.”
If you remember nothing else from this evening, remember that. “What God creates, God loves, and what God loves, God loves everlastingly.” I hope you will listen closely to those words, cling to them, and let them sink deeply into your life and into your heart. Let them echo through this evening and carry you into the next. They speak an eternal truth: that the love of God is a love that extends beyond the grave and transcends time and space. It is the love of the Creator who looked upon what he had created at the beginning of time and saw that it was good. It is the abundant and merciful love of the Father for his children. It is the profound love of the redeemer – the love whose depth was proven by his self-sacrifice on the cross. It is the love that now envelops our loved ones who now are embraced by the love, joy, peace, healing and mercy of the God they worshipped, loved, adored and served in this earthly life. It is the love that enfolds around each of us tonight and every night – the love of the God who hears our cries, sees our tears and knows the heartbreak in our hearts . . . the God whose goodness, kindness, love, mercy and compassion for us are without measure.
“What God creates, God loves, and what God loves, God loves everlastingly.”
