A Feast of Tears and Comfort

Sermon:

Text:

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who weeps and comforts.

Whenever my family would get together on my mom’s side at her parents for big holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas, my Grandfather would lead prayers. For most meals they would do the standard Come, Lord Jesus before the meal, and also say a grace after, Give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good and God’s mercy endure forever, a brief version of Martin Luther’s meal time blessing. But, on the big holidays gramps knew that the older group would want to sit around the table for a while talking, while the youngin’s wanted to retreat down to the basement to hang out together down there. And so, to be nice to us so we didn’t have to interrupt and ask to go, he would pray both the before and after blessings right at the beginning. And it was all in one go. You learned to take a big breath when Grandpa lead the prayers. Come, Lord Jesus be our guest, let these gifts to us be blessed, Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good and God’s mercy endures forever.

There’s something special about eating together, about sitting down as a group. When I read Isaiah it’s that table that runs through my head. The poetic imagery here evokes that place of comfort and joy. I invite you to close your eyes and think of which tables come to mind when I read the beginning section of the reading again.

         “On this mountain, the Lord of heavenly forces will prepare for all peoples a rich feast, a feast of choice wines, of select foods rich in flavor, of choice wines well refined.”

We often bring forth images of family dinners when we hear this, meals of the past, crystal clear in our minds. Of joy and laughter, belly’s way too full, jokes and smiles, waddling to couches, or even attempting to go outside for a walk or even maybe a game of touch football. We see memories of happiness and excitement.

But, the reading continues.

“He will swallow up on this mountain the veil that is veiling all peoples, the shroud enshrouding all nations. 8 He will swallow up death forever. The Lord God will wipe tears from every face;”

It’s also a funeral luncheon. The people gathered are brought together on Mount Zion, the location of the temple, what was their temple. They return to mourn those who were lost during the exile, they return to mourn what could have been, to look upon stones and see memories of what was, and what could have been, and God promises to wipe the tears from their eyes.

This meal evokes those memories of those who have gone before us, who we no longer gather with here, but in God we hear the promise of the feast to end all feasts.

The imagery of tears continues in revelation where yet again God will restore and unite God’s people, God will gather with them, us, wiping our tears, destroying death and mourning.

“Look! God’s dwelling is here with humankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples. God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. There will be no mourning, crying, or pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

It can be tempting when reading this passage to go, well, in cases of death and loss, don’t cry. No need for tears, God has destroyed the power of death, torn the curtain, reduced the shroud to shreds. I often hear what can feel like comforting words, don’t cry, they’re in a better place.

And that’s true, they are, they eat already that feast we long for, the feast we sample every time we have communion, a foretaste of the feast to come. But, that doesn’t mean grief doesn’t exist.

Martin Luther wrote the following letter to a friend, Justus Jonas, following the death of Luther’s 13 year old daughter, Magdalena. “I expect you have heard that my beloved Magdalena has been born again into Christ’s everlasting kingdom.  Although my wife and I ought rejoice because of her happy end, yet such is the strength of natural affection that we cannot think of it without sobs and groans which tear the heart apart. The memory of her face, her words, her expressions in life and death—everything about our most obedient and loving daughter lingers in our hearts so that even the death of Christ (and what are all deaths compared to His?) is almost powerless to lift our minds above our loss.  So would you give thanks to God in our stead?  For hasn’t He honored us greatly in glorifying our child?”

Grief tears us apart. It wreaks us. It wracks us. It shakes us to the core.

In the midst of strongest grief, I still see hope in the last line of Luther’s letter. “So would you give thanks to God in our stead?  For hasn’t He honored us greatly in glorifying our child?” When Luther can’t give praise, he asks his friend to do so in his stead. When all he can do is cry, his friend sings for him, give thanks for him, worships for him. When he can’t stand, his friend stands for him.

Our texts today end with one of the most powerful sections of John, the raising of Lazarus. It’s not the power of the raising from death that catches me. It’s the lead up. Mary and Martha are full of the same worry that the people of Isaiah find themselves, that we find ourselves. What if? If you had? We had hoped?

I love Jesus, of course, but I really love Jesus here. Jesus knows that he will raise Lazarus from death. He knows the happiness of the coming days. He knows of the great things in store, he knows of heaven and eternal life. And yet, Jesus weeps. Like Luther, like us, Jesus is wracked to his core, he is wreaked by Lazarus’s death and the grief Mary and Martha are going through. And God wipes the tears from our eyes. God weeps with us, and comforts us, God is full of joy and sadness with us.

This meal is the one of joy with family, and sadness at the funeral. The meal God brings us to contains all, for God contains all. The meal is comfort because the community is comfort. People of God, friends, we are each other’s comfort. We are the friends who praise and give thanks when others can only grieve. We are the ones who stand and sing, when others can only weep. We are how God wipes tears away, not through removal of grief and death, but through surrounding us with place and people of support and consolation.

Come to the feast my friends, come to the place where together, in joy, in grief, in exultation, in anguish, God brings us together. The feast God calls us to, invites and gathers us in, contains all of that. This feast is the one of joy and comfort, This feast is the one of grief and loss, This feast is the everlasting eternal feast.

Together we eat bread, together we drink wine, together we gather. Together, with each other, supporting each other, carrying each other, we cry out, feed us with the bread of life, gather our hopes and dreams, grace our table with your presence and give us a foretaste of the feast to come.