Some of our families gathered last night in the church grounds for a Halloween event with a difference. The children dressed up in fairly bizarre outfits, including one who carried around with him the head of a martyred saint, and they, as a group, went knocking on selected houses hoping to receive a friendly response.
But among them there were no ghouls or grim reapers, only the saints of old (and a few angels); and there were no tricks dished out nor treats solicited from the hapless homeowners, instead they took with them a candle and a prayer to share with those they met. And they came back with empty pockets and smiles on their faces.
Halloween goes back centuries. It is originated as a celtic festival, known as Samhain, marking the transition from the lighter to the darker half of the year. On this day it was believed the border between this world and the otherworld became thin, allowing spirits to pass through from one to the other. And so, it is thought, the ancient celts began to wear masks and costumes to ward off the harmful spirits.
Later, in the Christian era, Samhain was supplanted with a festival commemorating the saints and martyrs, and from which Halloween derives its name. All Hallows Eve, or the Eve of All Saints Day, used to be celebrated in late May but was moved sometime in the 8th century to its present position at the beginning of November.
But, as is evident by the trick or treat-ers who continue to roam our streets on the evening before this Christian festival, some habits are slow to die (especially when there are sweets involved!). My personal issue with Halloween however has little to do with its pagan origins, for it is not the only festival Christians have displaced, but because of its commercialism and the questionable values it teaches our young.
I want to teach my children to celebrate life, to discover the richness of simplicity and the joy of giving; and not to sell out to the constant desire for more and to an unhelpful fascination with death, which seems to be reinforced by such celebrations as Halloween. Our children, as we know, are exposed to enough of that already.
And I want to teach them the gift of faith and the difference it can make to our lives when we open ourselves to the one in whom we live and move and have our being.
So I find it appropriate that our gospel today is the raising of Lazarus.
If we go back to the beginning of chapter eleven, we see how this story begins. Jesus is with his disciples at the place where John was baptizing earlier, when he gets a message from the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha. ‘Your friend lies ill’ it says.
Now we might expect Jesus to drop what he was doing and go to his sick friend. It is what you and I would do, hopefully. But Jesus doesn’t. Instead he says something about this illness not leading to death, and about it giving glory to God, and then he stays put for another couple of days. It is only then he says to his disciples, ‘let’s go.’
And his actions bewilder not only us but his followers too. First, they can’t see why he would want to go back to Judaea; for Bethany, where Lazarus lived, was only a short distance from Jerusalem, and they, the disciples, knew Jesus was a wanted man there. And second, they don’t get it when Jesus says he is going to wake Lazarus up. They think, at least initially, Lazarus is merely taking a long nap.
But in the end they go, and just outside the village they are met by Martha. She is naturally distressed. Her brother has been in the tomb for four days, and mourners have come from all over to express their sympathy. She says to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ It is not unlike the way we would react, or have reacted, to the death of someone we have loved. ‘If only…’ we cry.
But though Martha is distressed, she is also a woman of faith, and her conversation with Jesus leads to a further disclosure of who he is and what he has come to bring. With words we know well, with words we hear often spoken at funerals, Jesus declares: ‘I am the resurrection and I am life. If a man has faith in me, even though he die, he shall come to life; and no one who is alive and has faith shall ever die.’
Jesus has come to bring life; life which nothing not even death can destroy.
I suggest there are a number of ways we can interpret these words, and this story.
We can take them literally.
All of us, I expect, have lost loved ones at some point in our lives. We know what it feels like to be bereft of the friendship and companionship, the support and the presence, of those who have walked alongside us and who, in so many ways, have shaped the people we are. We can empathise with Mary and Martha, their despair at the death of their brother and their grief-filled wonder at what might have been.
But such a reading also raises some curly questions.
Why did Jesus delay his coming? Surely, if Lazarus was a close friend then Jesus would’ve come immediately, especially if he could have done something to relieve the suffering. Not even his confidence in Lazarus’s full recovery or the glory this miracle would bring to God makes sense here. This is not a time for Jesus to play games. And who of us, anyway, has ever seen someone come back to life? We know it doesn’t happen, not at least after they have lay decaying in a tomb for four days.
And so a literal approach has its limitations. It leaves questions unanswered.
But we can also read this chapter theologically.
The raising of Lazarus reveals to us the humanity of Jesus. Jesus isn’t simply a divine being with no interest in our human particularity. He is the word made flesh. When he arrives at the tomb he is deeply moved by the suffering of Mary and Martha and their companions. We are even told ‘Jesus wept’ (the shortest verse in scripture).
But the miracle that concludes this narrative is also the crowning miracle or sign in John’s Gospel. Its purpose is to disclose to us a deeper truth about Jesus. Jesus, we have been told, is the living water, he is the bread of life and the light of the world, but he speaks of himself here as resurrection and life. And he demonstrates this by bringing back from the dead a man entombed for four days. Jesus has power over life and death. What is more this story points to the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Well, such a reading may interest the theologians and biblical scholars amongst us, but for others it can make us wonder what it is all about. And so we must move beyond the literal and the theological to the subjective, to asking ourselves the question: what is this passage saying to me? What is the good news it proclaims for my situation today? For this, surely, is where the truth of the gospel really matters.
For example, when I read myself into the story I find I am drawn to Lazarus. He speaks to me vividly of the human condition. Yes, we know none of us is immortal or indestructible. We will all die, some day. It may be from old age, or terminal illness, an accident, or at the hand of another. But death is a certainty we cannot deny, and no amount of botox or therapeutic counselling can prevent the inevitable.
And we also know you don’t have to be in a grave to be dead. We see death and decay all around, within ourselves and in those we share our lives with. We see it in our fear of failure and the bitterness we harbour towards others. We see it in our insatiable desires, always wanting more, and the destructive words that come out of our mouths. We see it in our inability to forgive and our refusal to let go. And we see it in our fixation with the self and our disregard of those who need our help.
And just like Lazarus, Jesus cries out to us, he shouts ‘come forth from your tomb’.
So what keeps you from living the life God desires for you? What are the bandages that bind you and keep you from becoming all that you are capable of becoming?
The message of our gospel is not that faith brings life after our physical death. This may be true; but the message is that faith brings life to us now. Eternal life, spoken of so often in John’s Gospel, is a quality of living in the present, it a life which draws its strength and joy from the one who is the very source of life itself, the one we call God. And such a life, as Jesus will go on to show, cannot be contained by the grave.
So let us, on this day, remember those who have died, the everyday saints who have walked this road before us and offered us a glimpse of what life is all about; and let us remember those who continue to grieve for loved ones no longer with us, let us support them and help them to find a way through the darkness of present days; but most of all, let us set free all that binds us and stops us from living life to its full, the seeds of decay and death and the masks we wear, and let us discover afresh the simple joy of the saints of old, whose faith and hope and love inspires us still. 
AMEN.

A sermon preached in St Alban’s Anglican Church, Eastbourne on Sunday 1 November 2009, by the Venerable Damon Plimmer.