November 2, 2003
Lazarus
All Saints Sunday
We have read the names of people who we remember
this year as those who have died, and yet their memory lives in us.
These saints are people we are grateful to. People who are missed even
now. Saying out loud their names, reminds us that we have not developed
into who we are, alone. No, we stand on the shoulders of all those who
have gone on before us. We have been shaped by the lives of the
generations that have gone on before us.
There were 496 names on the list of Johnnie
Johnson. Names written on thin sheets of paper, in tight columns, names
that Johnnie Johnson did not want anyone to forget. The year was 1950,
and Johnson was an Army private, just 18 years old , when his division
was thrown into combat in Korea. About two thirds of his comrades were
killed, and many others were captured, including himself. While being
held as a POW, Johnson began to worry that the brave men who had been
killed in action would be forgotten, and that their loved ones back
home would never know where, when and how they had died.
So he started a list. Using a pencil stub, he wrote
their names on anything he could get his hands on; discarded cigarette
packages, strips of wallpaper, pieces of trash. He wrote their names,
their units and their dates of death. After three months, most of
Johnson’s fellow prisoners were sick and malnourished. Seventy
died. Johnson kept writing on his list. Then a cruel North Korean army
major took control of the remaining 758 POWs and forced them to march
120 miles across snowy mountain terrain. The idea of the list increased
in importance in Johnson’s mind, especially after all the North
Koreans took away all the remaining dog tags. American soldiers were
shot and left to die if they stumbled or fell over, and Johnson kept
focusing on his list as he walked, in order to ignore his pain. He
managed to jot down the names of more than 100 men who died along the
way. That winter, in a camp alongside an ice-choked river, almost 300
more prisoners died. Johnson kept writing, adding their names to his
secret list, even risking his life at one point to steal paper from his
captors.
Johnson made two identical lists and hid one in the
mud-hut wall , the other in the dirt floor. When guards discovered the
list in the wall, Johnson was tortured and accused of maintaining “criminal propaganda” for his government. But it wasn’t propaganda he was
writing. It was a gift, a gift for the families of his buddies. The
list he buried in the dirt floor was never discovered, and so at the
end of the war Johnson dug it up. He sealed the list inside a
toothpaste tube, and didn’t take it out until he was safely on a
troop ship home. On the ship, an officer asked him, “What have you got there?” Johnson said, “It’s my
list, sir,” and showed it to him.
Four hundred and ninety six names. A list he had risked his life to
complete.
But the military showed little interest in the
list, it took many years for people to discover its value, and it
remained largely hidden until it appeared in a Reader’s Digest article
and a History Channel documentary. But now, at Korean War
Veteran’s reunions, Johnson is overwhelmed by relatives who want
to hug and thank him. Those who have lost loved ones are anxious to see
the list, which he has in a scrapbook, and when they find their loved
one’s name, you can sense their relief and gratitude. As long as
a man is on the list, he is not truly lost.
Johnnie Johnson risked his life to complete his
list-a piece of paper that has brought true peace to the families of
his fallen comrades. It is a record that cost him considerable pain and
suffering, but in the end he has no regrets.
On this All Saint’s Sunday, we celebrate
those who are on our list of saints, of those who live in our memory.
But we also celebrate another life, the life of Jesus Christ who lived,
and suffered and died, in order that our names go on a special list.
This list is all about resurrection. How do we get on this list? All we
have to do is believe in Jesus who said, “I
am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me, though shall
they die, yet shall he live and whoever lives and believes in me shall
never die”.
When we read the list of our saints, we do so with
joy because we know these folks are with God in the eternal realm. We
believe that God offers that resurrection to all because Jesus came to
set things right between God and all the people of the earth. This
resurrection is a gift, free to all who believe. But this story points
to a second truth about resurrection. That is the power of resurrection
is not only at work in the life hereafter, but right now in our midst.
Lazarus is raised so that others might believe, that others might see
how God is at work right now.
As I think about all those who I have admired,
those who have given me gifts of wisdom, of joy, of love, it is
sometimes hard to think that they are gone from this earth. My heart
sometimes aches for their presence. It is hard to list all those who I
consider saints without shedding a tear or two. Sometimes I have a
dream about one of them. For example, I had a dream about my
grandmother Marshall. In the dream we are talking and laughing, and I
am sharing with her my work in the church, something I did while she
was alive. Then I wake up and I realize it was all a dream. Yet, at the
same time I believe she is watching over me, and brings me gifts even
now, people, or a message, that gives me joy. Those saints on our lists
are watching over us and bringing us resurrection even now. Even though
we may be convinced like Mary and Martha that the relationship is dead,
they are alive, they are still present in our lives, they have been
raised by a power more awesome than death.
This past week I attended the Pastor’s
convocation out at Claremont STH. I met a retired layman who lives in
the Lake Arrowhead area, and who has been evacuated from his home since
Saturday. This home is special because he built it, in his younger
years, specifically as a retirement home for he and his wife. He talked
about what that home means to him and how difficult it has been not
knowing if the fire burned it or not. Yet even in the midst of this
unknowing, he has kept a positive attitude, he has faith in God to see
he and his wife through this crisis whatever they find when they are
allowed back up into the mountains.
The resurrection power is alive and well, both in
the life eternal, and in the life mortal. God is present with us now
and brings power of the resurrection, the “Lazarus
effect” to all the situations and
crisis of our lives. God brings the power of healing and new life, even
when we have given up, and when there seems to be no way forward. In
the words of the preschool song, “God
is alive, he’s not dead! He is alive, for he is living in you and
me!” We honor the memories of the
saints and trust that by lifting up their names, we affirm their lives
continue to make a difference. We lift up their names trusting that
they will not be forgotten. And we lift up our faith, trusting in the
God who has written our names in the book of life, and therefore we
will experience resurrection both in this life and the life to come.
Amen
