Tears flow through all of scripture.
Remembering the time the Israelites spent in exile in Babylon, the psalmist wrote “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, and there we wept when we remembered Zion.”
And suffering alone, and yet knowing that God hears, the psalmist prays, “Every night I flood my bed with tears—I drench my couch with weeping and God hears—You have kept count of my tossings—and put my tears in a bottle.”
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus comes to Bethany and finds Mary weeping, and all of those with her weeping because her brother Lazarus has died.
Jesus is greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. And when Jesus sees the tomb of Lazarus, and stares into the finality of death, Jesus himself begins to weep.
Tears flow through our lives as well.
We have done our share of weeping over the past year. We have lost people beloved to us, people who have shown us hints of what the reign of God must be.
And today, All Saints’ Day, we remember them—and our sorrow and our tears are part of that.
The scriptures appointed for today remind us, though, that our tears, our sadness and sorrow are not the end of the story—
just as death is not only a grave, but a gate through which we pass with Jesus into our joyful resurrections.
How fitting, then, that today, All Saints’ Day, is one of the Sundays that The Book of Common Prayer holds up as a day most fitting for the Sacrament of Baptism.
Baptismal water reminds us of that water that filled the formless void at the beginning of creation—
and of the water of the Jordan—
through which God led the Israelites into the Promised Land.
John baptized Jesus in this same river, and as Jesus came up out of this water, the Holy Spirit anointed him to lead us through his own death and resurrection from the bondage of our own sin into everlasting life.
And baptismal water also reminds us, at some primal level, of our tears—
Our own tears of deep sorrow, the tears that accompany death.
In the waters of baptism our tears of sorrow are gathered together and turned into life giving tears because this baptismal water reminds us that in spite of sorrows, we live in hope.
Isaiah describes that hope as the peoples streaming in from every corner of the earth, coming to the holy mountain, Mt Zion, for the feast that God has prepared for them.
And even better—God will destroy the shroud that has been cast over all peoples—the sheet that is spread over all nations—
The darkness goes away!
And death gets swallowed up forever!
John too—in Revelation—describes the indescribable—a heavenly city—coming down out of heaven from God—
God dwelling with us—
We will be his peoples—all people—
Death will be no more—
Mourning and crying and pain will be no more—
For the first things have passed away.
And these tears—all of those tears that have been shed, through the pages of scripture, our own tears of sorrow that have sometimes flowed like rivers through our lives—
These are for real, and leave their mark—
But here’s the promise—
Both Isaiah and John tell us—
God himself will wipe every tear from all faces, from their eyes—
And God will wipe away OUR tears as well.
When you look at a flame up close, the hottest part of the flame is blue—the color of water, the color of melancholy and sorrow—and also the color of heaven.
God takes our tears and turns them into light.
“See, I am making all things new!”
In the tears of our sorrow and in the water of baptism, God’s promise is that we will pass from death into the resurrection of new life—
So that we may continue FOREVER in the risen life of Jesus Christ our Savior
and so that we may show forth the light and the flame of God’s glory in this world.
Today we welcome Scarlett Joy, the youngest member of our congregation, into the worldwide, one, holy and apostolic church through the sacrament of Holy Baptism that Christians everywhere know as a passage into new life in Jesus Christ.
And may we, who have been chosen as her particular family of God, light her path as we show forth the light and flame of God’s glory in the world in our own lives.
Amen.