No More Tears

Text: Isaiah 25:6-9
Other texts: Wisdom of Solomon 3.1-9, Revelation 21.1-6a

How greedy life is. How greedy we are for life.

Life is good. We take pleasure in things. We are pleasure creatures, enjoying a good view as much as a good dinner. A good conversation, a good hug, and good handshake. A good friend. We are made to enjoy life, to enjoy living, to enjoy the company of others, to enjoy the beauties of the earth. It is our blessing that we love and are loved, that we create things and admire them, that we have aspirations and accomplishments, and also that we can overcome adversity and solve problems. We are clever and fun and complicated.

Life is sturdy. We live in a sea of organisms, not all of them friendly, yet we mostly persist. We live among hard and dangerous objects, yet we mostly survive. We are complex and fragile mechanisms, yet we and all of God’s creatures are resilient.

We value our lives. And we value the life in others. We form attachments that are rich and soulful. The wiring of our brains and the flow of hormones and enzymes in us mysteriously but actually connect us with the people around us. We are not alone.

So it is on All Saints day that we remember the dead. Or better to say we mark our memories of them, we bring those memories up and forward, and we refresh our affections for those who have died. And we ponder their missing.

Each of us has a strong and unshakeable sense of identity, of the “I” that I am. We seem to be continuous and coherent persons. And those we love seem so, too. So, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how well we are prepared, no matter how sensible and understandable, even no matter how desirable, the death of another is inexplicable. How could it make sense?

So death must be a corruption. All the ways we die—disease, suicide, accident, system failure—seem an interruption in the order of things. How is it that we who are so marvelously made could be unmade? How it that any creature could be? How can it be that someone who was so present can be lost to us? It is not right for life to end.

Life is good, yet life is also sorrow and suffering. I don’t have to tell you. Bad things happen to us in body, mind, and spirit. Discouragement, pain, and despair always attack and sometimes are overwhelming. It is tiring. Injustices are perpetrated on us. Burdens that are given to us, that are taken up by us, that are forced on us, burdens that accrete over time, or shock us in surprise—the burdens get heavy and heavier.

And then. Then death is more welcome. “Since I lay my burden down, my troubles will be over,” says the song. “For all the saints,” we just sang, “who from their labors rest … we feebly struggle, then in glory shine … soon to faithful servants cometh rest.” We quote the verses for evening prayer—“until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes and the busy world is hushed, the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then, Lord, in your mercy, grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.”—And we say these same words at a funeral, at the end of life. Peace at the last.

Even as greedy we are for life, we seem not to want to live forever. My grandfather, who at the time was nearing 90, once said, “I always wanted to live to a ripe old age. But I think I’m a little overripe.” The burden we let go is the “I” itself, our identity, our self, which at some point seems to take too much effort to maintain. And then we see that the words on Ash Wednesday, “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” could be a promise, not a threat. A relief. Release. Letting go.

Death is as much a part of us as anything in life. It is in our nature as created beings. It is not that we are wicked or imperfect or flawed, and therefore mortal. It is only the way we are made. It is how things work. And I guess we could look at it with the same amazement as we look at all the common and yet unbelievable things our bodies do: like see or love or dance or think.

But we don’t. Such a view is not sufficient. First, death causes too much sorrow for us on this side. And we don’t know for sure how they are feeling on the other side. Second, it is always too sudden, even when it is not. And third, most of all, we cannot believe that force of our lives, the momentum of existence, does not carry us into an active future where either loose ends are tied up or wounds healed or rewards realized. How can it be that evil deeds done—injustices—go unpunished or good deeds go unrewarded (as they certainly do in our lifetimes). How can it be that we cannot know and enjoy our eternal rest. How can it be that the promise and vitality of our youth is not restored. And how can it be that we are not reunited actively with God our lover and our maker?

The alternate first reading—the lectionary sometimes lists two choices—the alternate reading today is from the Wisdom of Solomon. It starts like this:

“The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace.”

In other words, the good will out. In the end justice prevails. The righteous are rewarded. Evil does not succeed, no matter how things seem. This is God’s working to set things right. God, as always, extracts the good from the evil. It is a kind of story of Lazarus in a cosmic realm. Death is not the period at the end of the sentence.

This is good news. Death is only a moment in life beyond which the living cannot see. It is good news, but it is not good enough. What Isaiah writes is better news. What God promises in Isaiah is not a revival or a renewal or a resuscitation. What Isaiah promises is an end to death altogether.

“God will destroy the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations;

God will swallow up death forever. And then God will wipe away the tears from all faces.”

The story of the Bible reinforces our instinct that death has no permanent part in the order of things. The intention of God in the first chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, is realized finally in the last chapters of Revelation, the last book.

In the end, it says in Isaiah, and also in Revelation, which quotes Isaiah, we are given more than comfort for the way things inevitably are. Instead, these prophecies and fantastic accounts predict an end to mourning, an end to tears, an end to crying and pain. The new creation is the one that God hoped for in the old creation. Our intuition about life will be realized and our greed for life fulfilled. We will no more light candles for the dead. We will no longer weep.