Posted on 08/15/2019 9:06:40 AM PDT by Gamecock
I want the beginning of my funeral to be focused on Jesus, as well as the middle, as well as the end, as well as every point in between.
here will come a day, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, when the man in the coffin will be me. They say the dead don’t care, but I’m not dead yet, so as long as I’m still alive, I’d like to have some say in what goes on at my funeral. And, truth be told, I think the dead do care. Not that they will be privy to the details of what happens at their own funerals, but they still care about the world, about their family, about the church.
Because I do care now, and will care even after I’m with the Lord, here are some things I hope and pray are not said at my funeral. I care about those who will be there, about what they will hear. I want the truth to be spoken, the truth about sin, the truth about death, and, above all, the truth about the love of God in Jesus Christ.
So, please don’t say…
1. He was a good man. Don’t turn my funeral into a celebration of my moral resumé. For one thing, I don’t have one. I’m guilty of far more immoral acts than moral ones. Secondly, even if I were the male equivalent of Mother Teresa, don’t eulogize me. Talk about the goodness of the Spirit who calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies, and keeps us in the true faith. Talk about our good Father who’s made us all His children in baptism. Talk about the good Husband that Christ is to His bride, the church. Don’t say, “He was a good man,” but “our good God loved this sinful man.”
2. Chad...Chad...Chad. I don’t want to be the focus of my own funeral. I was not the center of the liturgy on Sunday mornings, so why should it be any different during my funeral liturgy? If anyone’s name comes up over and over, let it be the name that is above every name—Jesus. He is the one who has conquered death. He is the one in whose arms I will have died. He is the one, the only one, who gives hope to the bereaved. Let me decrease that Christ may increase.
3. God now has another angel. Heaven is not going to de-humanize me. In fact, once I am resurrected on the last day, I will be more human than ever before, for my human soul and human body will finally be in a glorified state that’s free of sin. People don’t become angels in heaven any more than they become gods or trees or puppies. The creature we are now, we shall be forever. God has enough angels already. All He wants is more of His children in the place Jesus has prepared for them.
4. We are not here to mourn Chad’s death, but to celebrate his life. So-called “Celebrations of Life” do a disservice to the mourners, for they deny or euphemize death. The gift of life cannot fully be embraced if we disregard the reality of death, along with sin, its ultimate cause. Whatever the apparent reason for my decease may be—a sickness, accident, or old age—the real reason is because I was conceived and born in sin, and I built atop that sinful nature a mountain’s worth of actual sins. The only person’s life to celebrate at a funeral is the Savior conceived of the virgin Mary, who became our sin on the cursed tree that we might become His righteousness in the blessed font, who buried sin and death in the empty tomb He left behind on Easter morning.
5. Chad would not want us to weep. When Lazarus died, Jesus wept. Those tears betoken a God who’s fully human, who experienced the sadness and grief we all do at the death of those we love. To cry is not to deny that our friend or family member is with the Lord, but to acknowledge that in this vale of tears there is still death, still loss, still suffering. I do want those who mourn my death to weep, not for my sake, but for their own, for it is an integral part of the healing process. But while they weep, let them remember that in the new heavens and new earth, God “shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain,” (Revelation 21:4).
6. What’s in that coffin is just the shell of Chad. What’s in that coffin is the body that was fearfully and wonderfully made when our Father wove me together in my mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-14). What’s in that coffin is the body that Jesus baptized into His own body to make me part of Him. What’s in that coffin is the body that ate the saving body of Jesus, and drank His forgiving blood in the Supper, that I might consume the medicine of immortality. And what’s in that coffin is the body that, when the last trumpet shall sound, will burst from my grave as a body glorified and ready to be reunited with my soul. My body is God’s creation, an essential part of my identity as a human being. It is not a shell. It is God’s gift to me. And one day I’ll get it back, alive, restored, perfected to be like the resurrected body of Jesus.
Of course, there’s always more that could be added to this list, but I believe these get the point across. I want the beginning of my funeral to be focused on Jesus, as well as the middle, as well as the end, as well as every point in between. I care about those who will attend. Let them hear the good news, especially in the context of this sobering reminder of mortality, that neither death, nor life, nor anything else in all creation, can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ, our Lord, for He is the resurrection and the life.
Then why even have a funeral?
Doesn’t he look good though...
No, he doesn’t look good, he’s dead.
Closed casket and Pop Goes the Weasel sung by George Clinton
I know you are joking about the guitars, but, IMO, it really is a good idea to sort everything out before your are looking at death as really close.
There are people who leave an awful burden to their children regarding their belongings.
I have put in writing for my adult children how I want my cremation, my wake, my funeral, and my interment to be. And, of course, I have written my will.
--Yogi Berra
Don’t cry for Chad, rejoice with his wife.
I want my funeral to tell about redemption and God’s plan for all of our lives. I want them to know that I’m in heaven and I want to see all of them there too. I want them to know that while we were yet sinners, Jesus died for our sins. I want them to know that I was the chief of sinners and God redeemed me. I want each person to know that I love them and I prayed for them many, many times. For some of them every single day.
My songs:
I Know that My Redeemer Lives
Holy, Holy, Holy
Have No Fear Little Flock
Beautiful Savior
I want Psalms 91 and 103 read aloud
I want the gospel lesson from Paul’s conversion in Acts 9: 1-9
The epistle to be Ephesians 2:1-10
and OT reading Isaiah 61:1-3
I’m going to write a letter to my friends and family about my conversion and how much they all meant to me.
That will be my memorial service.
A funeral is not for the deceased, as they are long gone. It is for the living. The deceased lo longer feel pain, but the living do. This author wants to turn his funeral into a church service, and make it about how “christian” he is. But he is most certainly making sure “it’s all about him”, when it needs to be about the living. Nothing less than virtue signaling, even after he is dead.
Here is my friend Lou’s obituary, as published in the local newspaper and read on Car Talk with Click & Clack.
Louis J. Casimir Jr. bought the farm Thursday, Feb. 5, 2004, having lived more than twice as long as he had expected and probably three or four times as long as he deserved.
Although he was born into an impecunious family, in a backward and benighted part of the country at the beginning of the Great Depression, he never in his life suffered any real hardships.
Many of his childhood friends who weren’t killed or maimed in various wars became petty criminals, prostitutes, and/or Republicans.
He survived three years overseas in an infantry regiment in excellent health, then university for four years on the GI bill, and never thereafter had to do an honest day’s work.
He was loved by good women, had loyal friends, and all his children were healthy, handsome and bright.
For more than six decades, he smoked, drank and ate lots of animal fat, but never had a serious illness or injury.
His last wish was that everyone could be as lucky as he had been, even through his demise was probably iatrogenic.
He was preceded in death by his wife of 43 years, Judy.
He is survived by his brother Jack of Houston, Texas; and his children, Randall Kent of Brunswick, Ga., Louis John III (Trey) of Lewisburg, Thomas Bettis of Lewisburg and Edith Austin Wheat of Austin, Texas.
Lou was a daredevil: his last words were “Watch this!”
A memorial service and barbecue will be held on Labor Day at Lou’s place.
At my funeral I don’t want anybody to say, “We’re out of Half-Barrels”.
Lou wrote it himself. He was a retired professor at Bucknell University.
And making love with his ego....
my sister had huge pictures of her husband up on a screen. I don’t want that for me. Just someone play “Spirit in The Sky” and no flowers!!! what a waste.
He loved his family
He loved women.....boy did he ever...all of them
He loved traveling the world and America
He loved America and more than anything being from the South which he considered a blessing
And he loved freedom and he knew more than most what that meant
He believed Christianity made the most sense because what other religion ever had their God love his creations enough to come to earth to live and die as we do....in fact even harder than we do usually..to prove to us he can do it too so cowboy up and make the most of it
Now the deceased is in Gods hands
And you all have to do now is suffer through 4 or 5 of his favorites songs and you can go to his house and eat and drink and shoot guns and ride horses
I’d have more said about my five children as well but that’s a decent outline on the come
Hopefully because of all my kids and their kids there will be a lot of pretty girls
Maybe even some boo hooing
Perfect exit.
I had a best friend die in a plane crash in 1982 at age 25
All his half dozen ex paramours were lined up squalling together at his graveside service
That image has always stuck with me
Pretty Maids All in a Row
I wouldn’t mind that one :)
8. Doesn't he look natural?
At my funeral, I want someone to take the flower arrangement of my casket and throw it into the crowd to see who is next.
Chad, you are actually pretty damned self absorbed.
Your funeral as all funerals is about the PERCEPTION
others have of you so don’t tell others what to say
and think about you. Looks to me like what you want
is for people to skip your funeral and go straight to
Sunday church services. So be it.
Agreed.
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