Gabriel Marcel, French playwright, theatre critic, and philosopher of whom I am fond: he said something once I’ve always believed to be true. He said, “To love…is to say thou wilt never die.”[1] Think about that.
If love does not end, why doesn’t it? What if love doesn’t end because you will still need that love in the future? What if it’s true that the reason you love even those who have died is because you will love them again—in life, in a new life? “To love…is to say thou wilt never die.” Why doesn’t love end? Perhaps because life doesn’t—it goes on. Perhaps the dead are still objects of our love, worthy of our love, because we will find life again with them. “To love…is to say thou wilt never die.” These are the deeper things of our existence, and many have called them foolish. But it’s not clear just who the actual fools are. The mystery is still mystery, and it’s mystery that makes both followers and fools every day.
Now the reason I’ve taken you delicately down this line of thinking about love, about how love doesn’t seem to end, is because of today’s gospel. Lazarus, the dead man whom Jesus raised: his sisters go to Jesus, and they say, “Master, the one you love is ill.” Lazarus is loved by Jesus; he loves Mary and Martha too.[2] And so he goes to the tomb, and there John says Jesus wept for his friend. “See how he loved him,” people said. “Couldn’t he have done something to save him? Isn’t this the same man who gave sight to the blind?”[3] “See how he loved him.” Jesus, weeping by our graves.
But after the tears came the call: “Lazarus, come out!”[4] And so life followed death; or rather, love which experienced death would not let go of life. We see here in what John simply calls “this sign,” the secret of everything.[5] “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”—for eternal life.[6] “To love…is to say thou wilt never die.” This is the secret. This is why we have this primal, cultural, and vastly religious sense of life after death—not because of some evolutionary sophistication but because love is the cause and the purpose and the end of everything, because it is love which holds the universe and governs it. It is love which gives life. Think of two young lovers and a child born and the sweet joy of it; God’s love gives life too, just like that. Jesus loved Lazarus and gave him life. God loves you and gives you life. There is a reason that resurrection is at the center of our religion—again, not out of some primitive fear of death, but because of our understanding of love which is God, a love which moves everything.
These are secrets over which, for many of us, a veil rests. We simply do not see this deeper truth, the truth of love. But it’s not because God hasn’t shown us this love. We have done our best not to see it—looking the other way, finding false love and then stubbornly holding on to it. We have a hard time seeing this love, even understanding this love. I may even have lost some of you in this homily. But it does exist; many of us believe it exists. And we believe, again as I said, that it’s a love which will give you life.
You, like me, will be like Lazarus one day, dead as dead can be. But again, like Lazarus, Jesus can love you—he will love you if you let him—and he can call you out from death into life, just like Lazarus. “To love…is to say thou wilt never die.” That’s the secret. That’s how this love which is everything, this love which is God, is applied to you—in Jesus of Nazareth, this God who weeps at the graves of those he loves. Until his crying is done, and he speaks your name. My brothers and sisters, may you know this love, and may you hear his voice. Such is my prayer for you. Amen.
[1] Seymour Cain, Gabriel Marcel, 86
[2] John 11:3-5
[3] John 11:35-37
[4] John 11:43
[5] John 12:18
[6] John 3:16
© 2020 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
