The Unexpected Joy of a Requiem - John 11:32-44

When a movement from Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem first premiered, people said to the composer, “Oh how beautiful. You must have written this in honor of your late father.” No, he said, that’s not it. His father had recently died, but that wasn’t the inspiration for the music. About two years later his mother died, and the first full version of the Requiem premiered shortly thereafter. Again people thought that the inspiration came from the loss of his parents. Fauré was starting to get a little annoyed that people kept assuming that. In an interview, when the question came up yet again, he insisted, "My Requiem wasn't written for anyone – just for pleasure!”

It was not the answer people expected, but Fauré was not exactly the church musician people expected either. He was known to slip out for a cigarette during sermons. As a young bachelor, he once got fired from a church for showing up to play the early service still dressed in his evening clothes from the night before. And after he got married, people would see him out on the town with other women. There was also the time that he and and his colleague Widor got in trouble on a Sunday morning. They had asked for the opportunity to improvise together, in a church large enough for two organs. They sat down to play. It quickly turned competitive, as each one tried to throw the other guy off with sudden changes of key. Needless to say, Fauré had a difficult relationship with the priest there, too, who doubted his religious conviction. 

Fauré broke a lot of rules. After the first performance of the Requiem at La Madeleine in Paris, the priest-in-charge told him, “We don’t need these novelties: La Madeleine’s repertoire is quite rich enough, thank you.” But here’s the thing, Fauré was bored with the usual repertoire, and particularly tired of funeral music. In his own words, “It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death enough, and someone even called it a lullaby. But it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience… Perhaps I have also instinctively sought to escape from what is thought right and proper, after all the years of accompanying burial services on the organ! I know it all by heart. I wanted to write something different.” 

Maybe the inspiration for tonight’s extraordinary music came from Fauré’s rebellious streak, with a desire to break the mold of the same old music. Or maybe it was his surprising view of death, as a kind of happy deliverance. Either way, there is a joy that shines through the music. Which, I think, makes it particularly appropriate for tonight. Though this occasion is a solemn one with prayers for the departed, this is not a funeral. Even in the midst of loss, there is a joy that shines through All Saints’ Day. This is the day in the church year for contemplating what Fauré called the happiness above, or heaven itself. Tonight we marvel at the communion of saints, past, present and yet to come, and marvel at our own inclusion in that mystical fellowship. In the words of the collect, we pray for grace to follow the saints in virtuous and godly living, so that we may come to those ineffable joys that have been prepared for us. Tonight the joy of heaven shines through. 

The raising of Lazarus is as fitting tonight as Fauré’s Requiem. But like the music, the joy is not quite what we expect. The miracle of bringing Lazarus back from the grave is not the only, or even the primary joy in the story. The miracle wasn’t just about Jesus saving Lazarus’ life. Lazarus would die a second and final time. The miracle was meant to reveal something of heaven itself, by giving us a glimpse of resurrection. 

Prior to the miracle, Martha had professed her belief in resurrection to Jesus, at least on the last day, which was a common teaching at the time. That’s the way we usually think about resurrection, too, as a future event that we don’t yet understand. The English theologian F. D. Maurice once said that the exchange between Jesus and Martha depressed him. “How sad it is,” he said, “that after two thousand years, the church has gotten most Christians only to the point to which the Pharisees got Martha: a belief in resurrection in the future. Only a handful have ever gotten past that point and made the leap to resurrection now – to resurrection as the fundamental mystery of creation made manifest in Jesus’ own flesh. And yet that mystery is all over the pages of the New Testament.” (Robert Capon) I’ve heard it said that if you hold a light beneath the pages of Lazarus story, you’d see the resurrection of Jesus shining through.

Jesus is the resurrection and the life, not only in the future, but now. Making life from death is what he does. His death and resurrection are underlying realities of all there is in heaven and on earth. Like a grand sacrament (Capon), Jesus is the fundamental sign of God’s grace that infuses all of creation - a sign of God’s mercy over judgment, of God’s forgiveness over sin, of God’s life over death itself. Resurrection is what knits the communion of saints together. Resurrection is what joins heaven to earth. Resurrection is what brings us here tonight. 

Of course, like Fauré, we, too have a rebellious streak. We check out of sermons from time to time, and veer off course from virtuous and godly living. We get bored. And we worry. We question whether we are worthy enough to be included in the communion of saints, and whether we will be able to find our way to heaven. There are times when the joys of heaven feel very far away, and certainly out of our league. But Jesus can work with that. Such fears are no match for the one who can make life out of death. 

If you have come to an All Saints’ Day service to feel connected to saints who have gone before, you have come to the right place. Tonight we honor the mystical fellowship of all the saints, of which we are members. Or if, by chance, you have come tonight in need of a reminder that heaven is within your reach, you, too, have come to the right place. May an unconventional requiem show you a glimpse of what Fauré called the happiness above. May the joy of heaven shine through and reach us tonight.