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"Oh!" by
Dr. George C. Anderson Hosea 11:8, John 11:35, Romans 8:26-27 The
Cry of the Father
The
Cry of the Son
The
Cry of the Holy Spirit
Is Saturday Night Live still alive? I've heard rumors that it is, though I have no direct proof. I bet it has been 20 years since I have seen an episode. Back when I was in high school, however, I would frequently stay up late on Saturday nights to watch. In those years, the show had what would turn out to be an all star cast; Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtain, Bill Murray, John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner. We watched the Killer Bees, the Samurais, the Coneheads, Mr. Bill, Baba Wawa, the Bass-O-Matic and those two wild and crazy guys. It was also the first days of the Weekend Update report. "This just in from Spain. General Francisco Franco is still dead." Chevy Chase and Jane Curtain were the newscasters in those days. Chevy was especially hilarious because he delivered outrageous lines with a serious and somewhat befuddled delivery; "Hi, I'm Chevy Chase and you're not." Every once in a while, he would introduce as a guest commentator, Roseanne Roseannadanna, a character played by Gilda Radner. Roseanne Roseannadanna was a caricature of consumer reporters and news commentators who would air out their self-righteous indignation over some faulty product or outrage in the world. Ms. Roseannadanna gave knee jerk reactions to things she heard that upset her. The problem was that she was hard of hearing. For instance, she might complain about police efforts to stop the spread of cracked coke cans. "Sure, cracked coke cans can be a nuisance. They can spray everywhere, get on your clothes and make your fingers sticky when you drink them. But why should the police be involved? They have better things to do than to be searching coke machines." Chevy Chase would let her go on for a while, and finally interrupt her. It would take a while because she would have worked herself into a frenzy. When he finally got her attention, he would correct her. "No, Mrs. Roseannadanna, that's 'crack cocaine,' not 'cracked coke cans.'" Roseanne would pause and you would see the embarrassment come over her face. Pursing her lips, she would say, "Oh." That was enough. The audience would explode in laughter over that one little word. All her embarrassment and the hilarity of the scene would be expressed in that simple utterance. Then, Gilda gave the punch line another punch by adding with a forced smile, "Nevermind." What
I want you to remember is how all her embarrassment was conveyed in that
little word, "Oh." It's not really a word, is it? It is more
an utterance; more emotion than meaning. The song is built on a series of four meter refrains. The Senior Highs who attended my Sunday School class last week will know what I am talking about when I say that Gershwin follows a biblical tradition in that he offers a series of three, the first two being ordinary, and the last of the three being the kicker. One of the stanzas, for instance, begins with two ordinary and everyday memories: The
way your smile just gleams, The
way your smile just gleams, The
way you hold your knife, No,
No, they can't take that away from me. Where is the emotion expressed in that song? Kaplow says it is in the simple word, "No." All of the singer's love, all of the desperate resolve to hang on to memories of a lost loved one, are conveyed in that small word. There is something deep about the words "oh," and "no," isn't there? The hollow, deep resonance of the long vowel "o" opens up the head, throat and wind pipe all the way down to one's gut. Such small words as "oh" and "no" can carry such a huge weight of emotion. William Wordsworth understood this and offers my best example. At the end of the eighteenth century, Wordsworth wrote a poem that showed why he is considered one of the great English poets. It is called, "She Dwelt Among Untrodden Ways." Wordsworth spoke of a working woman, uncelebrated in the world. She was largely unnoticed when she lived, and also when she died..., unnoticed, that is, except by the poet himself: She
dwelt among the untrodden ways Wordsworth expresses his unique pain at losing someone dear, and says that while the world might go on after the death of that person as if nothing happened, his personal world has been turned on its head. I love that poem. I love that poem because, again, of that small word, "oh." Again, the resonance of the long "o" carries all the emotion of the poem, only this time it is the emotion of grief. Those
of you who have lost loved ones can appreciate the poem in a special way,
can't you? No one can understand fully what that loss meant to you...,
what it did to you. You can't explain it. You can't describe it so someone
else can understand. And it is demeans your grief for anyone else to say,
"I know exactly what you are going through," because no one
can know exactly. No one had that relationship you had. Even if you lost
a parent, your siblings can't understand because your relationship with
your parent was different from theirs. No one could have those precise
memories of your lost loved one: Thank you, William Wordsworth. On this All Saints Sunday when many churches honor those who have died in the past year and have gone on to the Church Triumphant, we thank you for offering that small word. But our greater thanks can go somewhere else. Having looked at the small words of "oh" and "no," I draw your attention to the smallest verse in the Bible. It's only two words. But you know what? Being only two words, the verse is actually wordy. For it describes rather than expresses an emotion. The verse, of course, is "Jesus wept." "Jesus wept." That's a description of a cry, or a wail, something that comes from deep within the gut. What is being described would be a lot more shocking to hear from Jesus than the writer's description of it. What would we have heard if we had been there to hear Jesus weep? I can imagine that upon first hearing the news of his friend's, Lazarus', death, the first thing to come out of Jesus' mouth, the first thing that opens comes out of his gut is "Oh!" Or maybe, "No!" I suggest to you that the good news of the Incarnation, that God became one of us in Jesus Christ, receives perhaps its most eloquent expression in this news that Jesus wept. One might think that this verse is not the good news of the chapter. After all, Jesus will later raise Lazarus from the dead. Just as the grave would not later contain Christ, but he is resurrected, at the end of this chapter we hear Jesus cry, "Lazarus, come out!," and he comes out. He was dead, now he's alive! Isn't that the good news? But think about this: What is the good news without the crying? If every word from scripture is life, where does that leave us when we are in the valley of the shadow? Without scripture? Without hope? Without the presence of Christ who was raised and left us here? Is it not greater to know of our being raised with Christ when we also know that Christ first meets us at our lowest places, even death itself? Two people look up the side of a steep cliff. One, an experienced climber, tells the other, a novice, "Up there, the view is awesome!" To which the novice responds, "Great! But how do I get up there from down here?" The good news of the verse, "Jesus wept," is that God will get us from the valley to the summit. God will meet us in hell to lead us to heaven. He will meet us at our lowest place and stay with us until we get to a better place. He will meet us in our grief, in our fear, in our doubt, in our despair, in our dark depression. In Christ, God joins his sigh to ours, his cry to ours. He shares in our grieving so as to share in our rejoicing. God's "oh!" joins our "oh!" in the verse "Jesus wept." A son visits his mother in the nursing home and watches her steady descent into the confusion of Alzheimer's, eyes once bright with love now dull with lack of recognition. He must care for one who once cared for him...., but can no longer. That is his "oh!" The verse, "Jesus wept," lets us know that while the mother will one day be with God freed from the confusion, for now God is with the son, waiting for that day, and sharing in his pain. Parents hang up the phone having heard their 23 year old son promise them again that he will not meet up with old friends and that this night he will not do the cocaine. This time, he just told them, he will keep his word. But they have been promised before. They do not trust him, and they have no control. That is their "oh!" The verse, "Jesus wept," lets them know that God shares their exasperation and is waiting with them for that day when the son will hit the bottom and ask for help. A husband and wife argue again, their marriage more a source of pain than of comfort. The coldest place in their house is the bedroom. That is their "oh!" The verse, "Jesus wept," lets them know that God cries with them and will stay with them working to get to a better place. In a year of firsts, she faces her first Thanksgiving without her husband of 48 years. That is her "oh!" And the verse, "Jesus wept," is God's message to her that he will be a guest at her Thanksgiving table, and he will share in her sadness over the empty chair. And by being there, perhaps he will help her, even on this first Thanksgiving without him, to also give thanks for the gift of who he was and now is in God's presence. In the verse, "Jesus wept," we learn that Jesus descended into the abyss of the groans that are too deep for words. He descended into the hell of our "Ohs!" There is Gospel in knowing that Jesus cried like that. I say this on this All Saints' Sunday for all those who may have lost loved ones months, even years, ago, and who still grieve, maybe with added pain because others have gone on with their lives and have perhaps forgotten how much was lost in yours. There is good news in knowing that the painful, awful "oh" came from Jesus himself. By his grace, our sighs can become our prayers to the one who raised Lazarus and did not himself remain in the grave. The Spirit of that resurrected one will join with our spirit and share in the sigh too deep for words and raise it as an offering to the throne of grace. Yes, that is good news. When we sigh, Christ sighs with us. And, know this: Christ will stay with us till we rejoice with him again. Praise be to the God who weeps.
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