“Knit Together”

to estimate one’s position
without instruments
or celestial observations

calculating direction and distance
traveled from the last known fix
while accounting for tides, currents, grief

drift         numbness
sudden storms of pain
unexpected joy

to reckon is to believe
something true
to reckon with the dead

is to believe I can know them
an airy thinness
gleaming

despite
the distance
traveled

I’d like to know how far
I’ve gone
how much farther there is

to go         how absence
unfathomable
becomes

something I can carry

In this poem, “Dead Reckoning”, by Hyejung Kook, we see grief as the process of negotiating completely unfamiliar territory with no comforting familiar guides—no “instruments or celestial observations” –to help us along the way. In her commentary Kook writes, “Learning about dead reckoning, a navigation technique used to estimate one’s position at sea, I was struck by how perfect a metaphor it seemed to be for…the struggle to find one’s bearings, the ungrounded relativity of everything after someone dies.”

It is easy to call grief a journey; easy to say that in the end grief is transformative—I say this to people all the time. But it is altogether another thing to actually be the blindfolded one on the dark road with no clue as to the destination, only a vague hope that “absence unfathomable” will become something we can carry, even as we know that the burden of grief, though it may lighten, is something we will never be able to put down.

Yesterday St. Martin’s remembered and laid to rest our friend and loved one Arthur Chute. We scattered his ashes in our Memorial Garden and honored all that Arthur meant to his family and our community; we celebrated him in story, song, laughter, and good food, even as we mourned his physical absence—which is a bittersweet space now filled with loving memories. 

It is appropriate that we were able to celebrate Arthur’s life during what is known in the Church as Allhallowtide, which is comprised of three days; first, All Hallow’s Eve, now commercialized as Halloween, but traditionally a night when people ridiculed death by wearing scary masks and costumes; then All Saints, when the Church remembers the blessed ones—who I call the “big S” saints—renowned for notable and exceptional lives of faith; and finally the Feast of All Souls, when we remember all of the ones who have gone before—those, like Arthur, who we love but who are no longer physically present to us. Allhallowtide has come to be known in the church as a particularly tender time, especially for those who are recently bereaved. 

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that every one of our Scripture passages for this morning alludes to tears.

Isaiah 25 prophesies the joy of God’s coming reign: 

Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces… 

Revelation 21 reprises the Isaiah text in a description of the New Jerusalem, the culmination of the Dream of God: 

…God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.

(Years ago a televangelist, preaching on this passage, used the metaphor of “God’s big handkerchief.” I kid you not.)

Both of these texts offer a particular kind of hope to those who despair—a hope grounded in the erasure of the chasm between earth and heaven, the divine and the human; Isaiah and the writer of Revelation tell us that God’s very self will enter into solidarity with God’s people, wiping away the tears of the grieving and the downtrodden.

The tears that Isaiah and Revelation speak of give way to hope; hope of transformed life at the end of long and arduous struggle.

Our reading from John’s Gospel offers a different perspective, but maybe not as different as you might think. 

The story of the raising of Lazarus is usually reserved for late in Lent; considered in the context of Jesus’ journey to the Cross, and rich in parallel imagery of tomb, stone and burial wrapping—all of it foreshadowing Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is all of that. It is also a portrait of grief. 

Of gut-felt loss. 

Of weeping. 

Of “if only”. 

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

This is a scene that tugs at the heart. Many can identify with the sense of loss, confusion, and even anger felt by those crowded around the tomb; many wondering what took Jesus so long to arrive, still others skeptical of his healing powers.  Jesus’ emotional response is perhaps unexpected; his is not a divinely stoic reaction. Rather it is an expression of deeply human grief, mirroring our own helplessness when we face the death of someone we love: We weep, we are moved, we are troubled, we are disturbed. Jesus feels the pain of grief even as he knows that he will raise his friend from the dead; here John shows us Jesus’ human vulnerability woven together with his divine nature.

And it is this weaving that is crucial to how we understand this passage in the context of the Feast of All Saints. New Testament Professor Brian Peterson notes that, while we can easily see the raising of Lazarus as an eschatological sign of the culmination of God’s Dream, we also need to see the Jesus who reaches out to his friend and calls him by name: 

“Lazarus, come out!” 

This story isn’t just about bringing Lazarus out of the tomb. It’s about Jesus as the One who embodies life and hope for us in the present moment—why? Because his power to defeat death lies most profoundly in his compassion for those who suffer—God’s very self, crossing the divine boundary to be in solidarity with the human condition.

Jesus wept. 

His weeping and his power over death—his compassion and consolation– are woven together in a compelling tapestry of hope in the face of loss. 

Jesus weeps with us. 

Erasing the chasm between earth and heaven, he joins us in our tears, for ourselves and for the world.

The tears that Jesus wept for Lazarus call out to us as we navigate the territory of grief and despair. They do not save us from the journey, but they do sustain us, offering hope as we make our way blindfolded and in the dark, so that “absence unfathomable” becomes something we can—eventually—manage to carry.

The Jesus that wept for Lazarus and for the world’s suffering is the Jesus that the “big S” Saints knew and loved, in whose name they served, and for whom they often gave their lives. The challenges that they faced and the wisdom they acquired inspire us in our own efforts to live into our calling to discipleship. But the saints are more than that. They are not at a distance, separated from us by time and across a chasm dividing human from divine worlds. The cloud of witnesses surrounds us—”big S” and “little s” saints alike—guiding and encouraging those who remember them with love:

to reckon with the dead

is to believe I can know them
an airy thinness
gleaming

despite
the distance
traveled

The saints that surround us are our celestial aids to navigation through the territory of grief. Through their wisdom and experience they uphold and enfold us as we encounter the dark roads of our lives and of an anxious world. 

to reckon is to believe
something true

The saints surround us.

We are knit together in compassionate and consoling fellowship with them.

We can reckon this to be true.