Praying for Dead People

Sermon for March 26, 2023
Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11:1-45

As you probably know from all the funeral notices over the past few months, we’ve had several parishioners die in a relatively short period of time.  Since the first of the year, we’ve lost 13 friends and siblings in the faith, and I want to raise them up in prayer now, seeking God’s continuing care for them as they rest in peace and look to rise in glory.  They are Charlie McCord, Harriet Kokjer, Mary Allen Roysdon, Gwen Caranchini, Jennifer Moore, Janice Talge, Bob Steinbach, Nancy McClure, Bill Peters, James Hanson, John Brunk, Richard Moseley, and just a few days ago, Carol Williams.  In addition, every week we pray for parishioners’ family members who’ve died, as well as those in our community killed in violent acts.  In fact, each week, we pray for all those who have died – as the Prayers of the People in Rite I says, we ask God to “grant to all the departed continual growth in thy love and service” (BCP 330).

Why do we do that?  Why are we praying that dead people would know “continual growth in [God’s] love and service”?  And what does that have to do with our lives now?

This Sunday seems a good time to ask these questions, given the Old Testament and Gospel readings.  Both have kind of a horror-film quality to them, readings you might pick for a Halloween party – first, an army of skeletons rising from an ancient battlefield; and then someone looking like the Mummy stumbling out of his tomb at Jesus’ command.  These stories capture our imagination because … well … they’re about dead people.  And, for most of us, death is our greatest fear. 

Right?  I mean, I won’t ask for a show of hands, but – in this time of Lenten self-examination, which we began by remembering that we are dust, and to dust we shall return – in this time of dust and ashes, ask yourself:  Am I afraid to die?  Am I afraid that I’ll never again see the people I love?  Am I afraid that, when I die, my life will truly be over?

If you are afraid to die, know that you’re in good company.  It’s easy for someone who’s relatively healthy and relatively young to see death as an abstraction most of the time, a distant eventuality I can ignore for now.  But it doesn’t take much – the doctor suspects something, and schedules a scope or a scan, and then you have weeks to think about what they might find….  And when we’re in a situation like that, dying seems to be much more of a going concern.

Well, into our fear of dying walks Jesus.  He and his friends are about 35 miles away from Bethany when Jesus gets word that his good friend there, Lazarus, is very sick.  Now, by this point in the Gospel of John, we know Jesus has astonishing powers to restore health and well-being.  He’s healed the son of a royal official who was dying.  He’s healed a man who’d been sick for 38 years.  He’s given sight to a man born blind, as we heard last week.  So, of course, we expect Jesus to run back to Bethany and offer another healing, another sign of his authority to reveal God’s glory. 

But Jesus stays put.  He tells the disciples, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of Man might be glorified through it” (John 11:4).  And he lets Lazarus die.  Knowing full well his friend is really sick, Jesus stays away two more days before taking the 35-mile hike back to Bethany … where, by the way, he knows the authorities are plotting to kill him.

Near Bethany, Martha, Lazarus’ sister, comes running down the road to meet Jesus.  By now, Lazarus has been dead four days, and Martha is filled with equal parts rage and hope.  “If you’d been here, my brother would not have died,” she yells at him.  And then, remembering at whom she’s yelling, Martha also says, “But even now, I know God will give you whatever you ask.” (John 11:21-22)  This conversation with Martha is the crux of this story, maybe even more important than the miracle itself.  Jesus assures her that her brother will rise again; and she hears that as the commonly held faith that, when the Messiah comes in glory and God rules the earth, the dead will be raised.  But no, Jesus says.  It’s better than that, because the future is now.  Are you looking for heavenly life, for life in all its fullness?  It’s standing here before you.  Come and join me in it, Jesus says, because “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.  Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26) 

Yes, Martha says.  And her trust will bring her into a direct experience of God’s glory.  Jesus comes to the tomb, finding Lazarus quite dead, as the stench attests.  Everyone’s grieving, and Jesus joins in the tears.  Then he narrates why he’s about to offer this miracle – “for the sake of the crowd standing here, that they may believe that [God] sent me” (John 11:42).  So, Jesus calls to the dead man.  And the dead man hears his voice and lives (John 5:25).

But here’s the thing:  As much as Jesus loves Lazarus, simply fixing his death isn’t why Jesus does what he does here.  If we knew Greek and heard the story that way, we’d get a hint what’s going on when Jesus famously cries.  In English, it’s written like this:  Jesus “was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved,” and he began “to weep” (John 11:33-35) – which is not just shedding a few tears, the scholars say, but “wailing and lamentation for the dead person.”¹  Naturally, we hear this as compassion, as Jesus suffering with those who are grieving over the death their brother or good friend.  But in Greek, what we translate as “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved” is more like “agitated and indignant.”²  Jesus is angry when he sees sin and death exercising their dominion in the world.  He’s angry because he knows it doesn’t have to be that way, and he’s about to start the fight.  He’s come to vanquish sin and death, breaking the teeth of the beast that hunts us all.  So, he’s about to demonstrate God’s power to do just that, a preview of the ultimate victory he’ll win when he walks away from his own tomb, having trampled down sin and death under his feet.  He’s about to show Mary and Martha and all their friends why they need not fear death anymore.

So, why do we pray for dead people?  I think there are at least two really good answers.  First, our loved ones’ stories are not over.  If the movies these days teach us anything, it’s this:  A good story never has to be over; there’s always another sequel to write.  And, unlike most of our movies, when God is the screenwriter, the story just keeps getting better with each new chapter.  As our catechism puts it, “We trust that in God’s presence those who have chosen to serve [God] will grow in [divine] love, until they see [God] as [God] is” (BCP 862).  Our journey alongside that God who loves us more than anything only grows richer with time, until finally we “come to the fullness of grace which [God has] prepared for those who” make the choice of love (BCP 379).

And here’s the other reason we pray for dead people: Because it helps us remember.  It helps us remember them, yes; and that’s right and a good and joyful thing.  But even more important, praying for dead people helps us remember that eternal life is a real thing.  As the old dictum goes, praying shapes believing.  The act of praying for someone who has died reminds us of the truth that this person’s life is not over.  And we need to be reminded of that eternal reality – over and over again.

In fact, maybe that gives us a third good reason to pray for dead people.  Ironically enough, as Mary and Martha and Lazarus come to learn, death is not about us.  Death is about the fullness of reality, the fullness of God’s reign and rule lived now and later – the fullness of life freed from sin, freed from aging, freed from worry, freed from fear.  When Jesus says to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life,” it’s in present tense – and it’s in present tense for you, too.  Eternal life starts now, the minute you can look to Jesus and say, with Martha, “Yes, Lord, I believe” that physical death is both real and not our ultimate concern. 

“Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,” Jesus says (John 11:25).  So, death will come our way, as our prayers remind us each week.  And – it’s just as true that “everyone who … believes in [Jesus] will never die” (John 11:26).  It might be the greatest paradox in a faith that’s full of paradox. 

But embrace it, and it’s yours.  The offer is there for you to take, the Tree of Life given to you, even though you do pick the fruit God tells you not to take from the garden.  It’s an offer that seems too good to be true precisely because none of us is good enough to deserve it.  But it’s yours for the taking anyway, eternal life beginning now and continuing always.  You need not stay bound up in the fear of a certainty you can’t control anyway.  Instead, trust in the God who loves you to death, and unbind yourself, let your fear go.

1.      HarperCollins Study Bible, 2036 (note).

2.      New Interpreters’ Study Bible, 1931 (note).