Sermon for All Saints Sunday

​The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews
4 November 2018
All Saints, B
John 11.32-44

Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.
It takes a lot to change a man,
    O it take a lot to try.
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.

These lyrics have resonated with me
    since I first heard in them the film
        A Star is Born.
Letting the old ways, at least some of them, die
    is the story of Christianity. 
It’s the story we celebrate today
    as we remember all the saints
        and we make three new saints
        in the waters of Baptism.
The story we celebrate today
    is that death, the old way
        is no more. 
The souls of the righteous 
are in the hands of God we hear
    in the Wisdom of Solomon.
Jesus the Messiah,
    before his crucifixion and resurrection
        has command over death.
He calls to Lazarus,
    in the tomb four days,
        soul believed to be gone,
            “Come out!”
Then Jesus tells the others
    “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Unbind him, and let him go.

Our passage from John today
    is not Jesus wiping away every tear 
from Revelation.
It’s not a comfort 
about no torment ever touching the dead in God.
Our passage from John today
    is about the old ways dying,
        about not even death having the last say.
In John’s gospel,
    the raising of Lazarus 
is what finally leads to the plot to kill Jesus.
Having command of death
    is to have command over the tools 
        of those who use death as punishment. 
As NT Wright says,
    “Death is the last weapon of the tyrant, 
and the point of the resurrection,
despite much misunderstanding, 
is that death has been defeated. 
Resurrection is not the redescription of death; 
it is its overthrow and, with that, 
the overthrow of those whose power depends on it.”
What good is being able to execute
    if this wandering rabbi Jesus
        can just bring people back to life?

That’s what we celebrate on All Saints.
We celebrate that Jesus, 
    through his death and resurrection has defeated death,
        not merely redescribed it. 
We celebrate, as we look at our own future,
    that death — the old way — 
is dead.
And as we remember our own baptisms
    and celebrate three more,
        we remember our promises
            about our own old ways dying.
We hear,
    “Do you renounce all sinful desires 
that draw you from the love of God?”
Then we’re all asked, 
    “Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, 
whenever you fall into sin, 
repent and return to the Lord?”
It takes a lot to change someone
    O it takes a lot to try.
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die. 

The dying to sin, dying to our old ways
    is something we do daily.
It’s not something we do alone. 
We’ve been given new life in our baptisms,
    joined to Jesus’ death as we go into the water
        and joined to his resurrection on the other side. 
We’ve been sealed by the Holy Spirit, 
    marked as Christ’s own forever.
If anyone is in Christ the old way is dead,
    and the new has come.
We’re fed with Christ’s Body and Blood,
    strengthened to resist sin and the forces of wickedness.
We gather together in community,
    remembering that it’s time to let the old ways die. 

As these three come to the font,
    making promises on their own
        we make promises to uphold them in their promises.
As they are vested as members of the baptized people
    we challenge them to 
        “Confess the faith of Christ crucified, 
proclaim his resurrection, 
and share with us in his eternal priesthood.”
As we gather around the font
    to celebrate these baptisms,
        we need to ask ourselves,
            “What old ways need to die?”
Daily we die to sin,
    but as a congregation, 
        what old ways have we held on to that need to die
            so that we can continue to experience new life in Christ?
Mary says to Jesus,
    “Lord, if you had been here, 
my brother would not have died.”
Jesus rebukes Martha just a few sentences later,
    “Did I not tell you that if you believed, 
you would see the glory of God?”

Jesus the resurrected Christ
    is the Lord of Life who conquers death. 
While he could have prevented Lazarus’s death,
    he teaches people of Judea
        and us today that death is not the end.
Today we celebrate that our deaths
    are the beginning of new life through Jesus. 
We celebrate that Holden, Anthony, and Ethan
    are willing to take that step.
That song in A Star is Born ends with
Maybe it's time to let the old ways die Maybe it's time to let the old ways die It takes a lot to change your plans Hella drain to change your mind Maybe it's time to let the old ways die.

Today we celebrate new life in Christ,
    eternal life in Jesus,
        and ask ourselves,
            what old ways need to die?