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.
At 64 I have thought about this and just about come to the decision of no funeral. I have thought about donating my body to one of the Body Farms for Forensic Study.
I have no desire to be embalmed and put in a coffin to be buried.
Having been to enough funerals there is a certain amount of Hypocrisy involved and the things that may be said at a eulogy are really farfetched and off the mark. All it does it make the family feel better.
Then there is the absurd cost of funerals. What a waste of money. My father died almost three years ago and his was about $12,000. I wanted to opt out of the Vault they want you to buy, $1000. But my sister insisted. The whole process makes me cynical.
My choice would be a nice reception and let it go at that.
Luckily I have twice as many guitars as I have children.
Sounds to me like he wants the Gospel proclaimed.
“At my funeral, I want them to look down and say, ‘Look! He’s moving!’”
Nearly happened to my dentist.
3 years ago I called for an appointment because I lost a filling. No answer. I tried for several days, gave up and called a different dentist.
My wife told me his office was closed.
Last month (3 years later), I found out his office was open so I got an appointment and had my teeth cleaned.
I found out that he’d had a heart attack and then complications and went into a coma. After 3 weeks in a coma, the hospital declared him brain dead and started to schedule organ harvesting. Two days later as they were about to start cutting; he sat up, and got out of bed.
That’s pretty good. Going from brain dead to walking around and going back to his dental practice.
I guess that’s almost like “Look, He’s moving!”
:)
I don’t know if I would want a brain dead dentist working on my teeth...........
I found senior softball and it's been a full time passion ever since. I've made many long time friends with the same love of the game that I have so I gave my family instructions to have me cremated and give the ashes to my friends and have them spread them on the softball diamond where we always play.
Then after the usual game they'll retire to the picnic bench for a couple of beers and start trash talking me.......LOL!
That's what we still do for cheap ass Homer who died last summer. About two weeks before he died we chided him for never buying pizza and his prophetic words were: "Over my dead body".......LOL!
Cheap ass Homer was a Socialist who never married, had lots of money and he left it to a niece and a nephew whom he seldom ever had contact with. In fact, his body laid in the county morgue for 10 days until our league president looked at the player waiver form to see if there was any one listed to contact in case of an emergency which we then turned over to the Troy police dept that had responded to his death.
So after the funeral, which was hosted by the niece and nephew, the post funeral reception was held at a restaurant and all the guys who knew Homer best, ate and drank their brains out knowing they finally got him to pay for something..............LOL!
My other sister got up and told some stories. Same sort of thing.
I got up and told my story about my sister. A life of alcoholism, but also a person that really cared for other people. A life of ups and downs with several times in and out of jails and hospitals.
A life of distressed, drunken calls to her kid brother - crying in agony that she was afraid to die, afraid of God - she had done so many bad things in her life, she didn't want to go to Hell.
And then how something bad turned to good. A year in prison where two gals from the nearby country church witnessed to her and met with her weekly. She learned of the real grace of God and not her simple childhood recollection of God that equated to if you're good you go to Heaven, and if you're bad you go to Hell.
After those years of agonizing phone calls it was unbelievable to hear her on her death bed say “Well, I'm guessing I won't be around much longer. But whatever happens, I know that I am in God's hands.”
I think I closed it off with something like “And I hope that all of us gathered here today will have that same type of relationship with our Creator when we die.”
I was thinking of toning it a bit down on the preaching side, but glad I didn't. Seeing as the pastor didn't even mention God!
A priest friend asked my husband and me to plan our funeral service and give the outline to him for safe keeping. That way arrangements would not be made at a time of grief. My mother borrowed “my funeral” for my father and my grandmother, and we used it for my mother’s. So I have sat through my own service three times.
I spoke at both my mom and dad's funerals. I made sure the Gospel was presented.
I mean, what better time to talk about Heaven and eternity than at a funeral. That's about as real as it's gonna get.
“A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.”
What a great tribute! I am sorry for your losses.
You might be my long lost brother. Funerals and a little plot of land are just stupid.
One hears such awful schmaltz at funerals.
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