Posted on 03/02/2011 3:15:13 PM PST by Gamecock
A young man I knew died in a tragic traffic accident. His death was utterably sad. At his funeral, his friends were all wearing T-shirts adorned with his picture. At the front of the church were heaped up flowers, footballs, and stuffed animals. On top of his coffin was a picture from his senior prom.
The service began with a recording of his favorite song, a heavy metal power ballad. The preacher gave a eulogy, praising how the teenager was such a good friend, such a good person, recounting some of the funny things he used to say, telling about the dreams he had for his life. Everybody in the church was crying.
Then his best friend got up to say a few words. He was sobbing. He finally croaked out his good-bye, as the congregation joined his sobs. His girlfriend recited a poem she wrote about how much she loved him. Then, the boy’s grief-stricken father had to get up in front of everybody to talk about his son.
As if all of this emotion were not wrenching enough, the funeral director next played a video, showing highlights of the boy’s life — his baby pictures, playing with his friends, enjoying Christmas with his family, waving at the camera.
There was not a dry eye in the house. People said what a beautiful funeral it was.
Another funeral I attended was of another young person who died a tragic death, one that was even more senseless and horrible. She had been raped and murdered by a serial killer. (I was one of the elders on duty. My job was to keep the news media away from the family.)
At this funeral, the congregation sang old hymns. They were in a minor key, but the lyrics centered on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The grievers joined together in a responsive reading of the Word of God.
The pastor, garbed in black, read more texts from the Bible. Instead of a eulogy, the pastor recited the facts of the girl’s life, emphasizing her baptism, her catechesis, her confession of faith. He described how she joined the church, her confirmation, and her regular reception of the Lord’s Supper.
The pastor, preaching from the Bible, gave a sermon on our travails in this wicked world, on how the Son of God entered our sinful condition, how in His sacrifice and His promises, we have a sure and certain hope that this poor child has entered into everlasting joy. The justice of God will be manifest, and so will His mercy, and He will wipe away every tear.
We sang some more hymns. The mood was sad and somber, but the Word of God that permeated the whole service was like a lifeline. Or, rather, like a strong arm supporting us in our grief. Yes, we cried, but the funeral gave us strength.
Our culture does not know how to handle death. We insulate ourselves from it. The dying pass away out of sight.
We are terrified of death. And so we sentimentalize it.
The contemporary funeral deals with grief by indulging it, even feeding it. A successful funeral — with its heart-wrenching personal testimonials, its parade of mourners pouring out their anguish, the emotional manipulation of the congregation — works by creating an emotional catharsis. The upsurge of feeling can indeed feel cleansing. As at the ending of a tragedy, the emotions are purged. The bereaved feel drained. The aftermath, in Milton’s words, is “calm of mind, all passions spent.” The grievers really do feel better.
But how different is a traditional Christian funeral.
In a Christian service of the burial of the dead, the mourner’s grief is fully acknowledged and shared. But it is channeled into contemplation and prayer. The grievers are given not catharsis but consolation.
That consolation is not to be found in how good of a guy the dear departed was. Even Christian funerals sometimes miss this point.
My former pastor refused to deliver eulogies. It is not fitting, he would say, nor is it comforting, to dwell at a funeral on the dead person’s good works. When we die, we dare not stand before God claiming how good we are. So that must not be the emphasis at a funeral.
The dead person’s only hope is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is the only hope of the grievers at the funeral, who, having been forced to confront the reality of death, tend to be uniquely receptive to spiritual truth.
My pastor would deflect attention from the person who died to the Person who died and rose again. He would preach Jesus — the cross, the atonement, the imputation of His righteousness, the resurrection — as the victor over death, hell, and the grave.
He would not preach this into a vacuum, but into the hearts of the grieving family and friends. He would connect Christ’s resurrection to the resurrection of their loved one and to theirs.
We did not leave this funeral drained, but comforted. He moved us from desolation to faith. We still hurt, but we were given hope, not in ourselves — at a funeral we experience as at no other time our frailty and helplessness — but in Someone stronger at a time when we need strength.
Both funerals sound a bit extreme; most funerals I’ve been to point the audience to the hope we have in Christ, yet appropriately recount some of the highlights of the person’s life.
Christianity not only teaches us how to live, but also how to deal with death.
Mrs. Gamecock has specific instructions on the passage I want preached and the hymns I want sung at my funeral.
The passage?
1 Corinthians 15:1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
The Resurrection of the Dead
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope [2] in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
The Hymns?
On Jordan’s Stormy Banks
It Is Well With My Soul
Amazing Grace
Close with Arise My Soul Arise
Me, too. I don't want people to mourn my death, but be glad that they knew me. I'd rather they walk away laughing and feeling good, happily treasuring whatever memories they have of me, than bawling their eyes out. The ones who ;ove me are going to cry anyway because they will miss me, just as any of us cries over the loss of a loved one. But, for my funeral, I would really like it to be about some good jokes, funny stories and favorite upbeat music.
Amen, brother.
If you’re a Christian, then you’d believe that the person is alive and well in the next world, and not really gone at all. It’s also a time to reflect on the person’s life and what they might have done a bit differently.
My grandmother died in 2007. She was 86, and although she was mentally sharp to the end, she was very frail and needed a walker to get around.
So I thought to myself how there were ways she might have taken better care of herself (like eating better and getting more exercise). Perhaps she might have lived a few more years or been able to continue independently. Above all, she took way too many unnecessary medications for years.
It is from the mistakes of others that we improve ourselves.
I haven’t seen Gene Veith for some time, but I used to know him very well. I worked on the board of a Christian academic organization with him for a number of years. Good man.
And, incidentally, he was willing to work and pray with me—a Catholic. And I with him.
One of the more interesting takes on mortality was from a mortician’s assistant in southern Mexico. The mortician had to prepare the bodies of both Christians and pagans, so had to carefully follow the rules of respect of both when working on one or the other. And he created additional rules for his assistant that were both strict and arcane.
One of these rules was that both the mortician and his assistant had to attend each and every funeral and burial, and no matter what happened, they had to be stoic, somber and respectful to all.
Another was that only he, the mortician, could touch a dead body, that the assistant could do everything else as needed, but not so much as brush against a dead person, or he would be fired.
His reason for doing so was peculiar. He said that everything in the presence of death becomes powerful, and everyone exposed to it is changed by it.
Most people, he said, waste that incredible gift of energy and power, while it is changing them, but if you can remain controlled, attending a funeral can make you a far stronger person. And you can observe the cathartic changes happening to the other people in attendance.
But, he said, touching a dead body is such a powerful thing that it can injure a person. In an odd way, it could strip away a person’s recklessness and sense of adventure, because it would frighten a very deep and primitive part of ourselves. For the rest of your life you would be dull, boring, and balanced in everything. A pillar of society, without a sense of daring or adventure.
So, he concluded, while there can be many opinions about death itself, in its wake it leaves gifts, of sorts. And what people do with these gifts is up to them. Most people waste them, but some people use them to change their lives, for better or worse.
My husband demanded that everyone at his wake have a drink on him. Now years later I remember the wonderful stories that were shared on that day, they remind me how much living was put into a short life. The music was his own voice singing “Danny Boy” but he is in a different choir now. It helped me knowing that his request was for a celebration, his destination was to Our Father’s house.
Exactly what I told my husband I want. I want a full out Celebration of Life - followed by a margarita party. Lots of laughter and stories - and Lord knows I've given them lots of material. :)
Sorry for your loss.
Been there, done that.
FRegards,
At my funeral I want people to pray for my immortal soul.
Also I want them to discuss how horrific but yet how awesome my death was.
And would it be too much to get Michelle Malkin and Megyn Kelly to weep over my grave?
I received word of my daughter’s sudden death almost two years ago. Your post put me in mind of it again. One of the first people I called was a close friend who lost his daughter to brain cancer some years before. He a Catholic and I a reformed (OPC) protestant. We have been through the fire together and I knew of no one else at that moment who knew what I felt. I wouldn’t trade my friendship with him for anything. Its good when brothers can come together in the Lord. There is a lot about Catholic doctrine that separates us but I am convinced he loves Christ and trusts him in a salvific way. I also know that he would say the same about me.
Thanks.
I have that article bookmarked under "/Christian/eschatology". Death and dying are "personal eschatology", the wages of primal sin and your own personal sled ride to judgment and the age to come (or at least, the intermediate state).
The phrase "celebration of life" is like the words "healing" and "closure," all terms that have the scintilla of truth in them necessary to often mask the primal smell of sulphur.
What is your only comfort, in life and death...?
You got it right.
Add in some good food, music and a keg & cocktails.
I've seen too many tears and too much heartbreak in life to go out with more of them.
That is exactly what I have requested. A party of friends and family remembering the good times. Their tears and prayers will not change my destination after death. Only my actions on this earth can do that.
"...not catharsis but consolation."
Amen.
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