100 Sermon Illustrations on Funeral

Mourning customs differ from culture to culture. A particularly dramatic example comes from the history of southern Africa.

In 1824 the Zulu nation was led by its greatest king, the tyrant Shaka. His army was composed of at least 50,000 celebate warriors and he ruled with an iron hand. The young king’s mother, Nandi, was dying from dysentery and not expected to last out the day.

Shaka received the news in shocked silence. After dismissing the warriors around him, he continued to sit staring into space until word came that his mother was dead. Then he rose, ordered his indunas [generals] to put on their war dress, and disappeared into his hut. A few minutes later he reappeared, dressed for battle; his face was smeared with colored clay and for almost half an hour he stood among the assembled indunas with his head resting on his shield, occasionally wiping away his tears with his right hand. Not a word was said.

Francis Fynn, a white trader and among the first to contact the Zulus, watched apprehensively as the silent crowd waited for a signal from the King. Since Fynn had witnessed the reaction to the death of Shaka’s grandmother he had some idea of what to expect. From the moment he had realized that Nandi was dying, he had been aware that her death would be accompanied by a display of frenzied mourning. But nothing in his experience had prepared him for the mass hysteria which now convulsed Bulawayo.

The long silence was broken by a terrifying yell from Shaka. After sighing deeply three or four times, he suddenly screamed: ‘Maye ngo Mama!’ (Alas, my mother!) This cry was instantly taken up by the crowd. Frantically tearing off their ornaments they began weeping and howling uncontrollably. From the neighboring kraals [settlements of round huts], people poured into the royal enclosure shrieking at the tops of their voices to announce their arrival. By early evening more then 15,000 delirious men and women were milling about Bulawayo; the number grew through the night as more and more regiments crowded into the capital. Next morning Fynn estimated that no less than 60,000 people were wildly lamenting Nandi’s death.

The scene that morning was horrific. Worn out from the excesses of the night, hundreds of mourners lay fainting from lack of sleep and food, while others trampled over them in renewed bouts of violence. Some forty oxen had been ritually slaughtered but no one was allowed to touch the meat which was being devoured by packs of dogs and vultures.

At noon the regiments formed a circle round Shaka, who led them in a war- chant, and then ordered several warriors to be executed on the spot. ‘No further orders were needed,’ says Fynn. ‘But, as if bent on convincing their chief of their extreme grief, the multitude commenced a general massacre. Many of them received the blow of death while inflicting it on others, each taking the opportunity of revenging their injuries, real or imaginary. Those who could not force more tears from their eyes and those found near the river panting for water were beaten to death by others who were mad with excitement. Towards the afternoon I calculated not fewer than 7,000 people had fallen in this frightful indiscriminate massacre. The adjacent stream, to which many had fled exhausted, to wet their parched tongues, became impassable from the number of dead corpses which lay on each side of it; while the kraal in which the scene took place was flowing with blood.’

Nandi was buried at her kraal the following day. Ten of the best-looking girls of the kraal were buried alive with her. A regiment of 12,000 warriors was formed to guard the burial place for a year: they were supplied with 15,000 head of cattle taken from kraals throughout the Zululand. Even greater penalties had to be paid. Immediately after the funeral it was decreed that no crops could be planted for a year and that all milk drawn from cows during that period should be allowed to run waste on the earth. Any women found pregnant during the year were to be killed, together with their husbands. These appalling conditions, which entailed starvation for thousands, were enforced throughout the land.

Western mourning practices may seem cold and austere, but perhaps we should be thankful.*

Sermon in Questions People Ask series 1 Corinthians 15:35-44

ASHES TO ASHES

==============

I. What will happen to you when you die?

II. Cremation is on a roll.

A. It is an increasing popular option for the deceased.

B. Cremation is practical.

C. Is it less spiritual?

III. History of cremation.

A. Popular in ancient world.

B. Jews and Christians chose burial.

IV. Why cremate?

A. Fire is a positive symbol - purification and holiness.

B. Burial is not important in the Bible.

C. Cremation only speeds the natural process. Gen 3:19

D. Non-religious issues.

V. Questions about cremation.

A. It can be less dignified.

B. Disputes over cremation's claims.

C. Burial was consistent Christian practice in past years.

VI. Dust that is eternal.

A. Neither cremation nor burial do justice to resurrection.

B. Resurrection is associated with body, but goes beyond it.

VII. Honor God with your body.

A. No clear Biblical command about funerals, so do as you wish.

B. Key points to focus on.

C. What will happen to YOU when you die?

[previous illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickId #1684]

Young people may forget that funerals are waiting on the other end of weddings and baby showers. When we segregate ourselves -- when we don't know anyone who is suffering from arthritis or Alzheimer's -- we can be lulled to sleep. It is this unexpectedness of death that should encourage us to take a second look, to reconsider our pleasant denial, to admit that, yes, death might visit us as early as this week.

Gen. William Nelson, a Union general in the Civil War, was consumed with the battles in Kentucky when a brawl ended up in his being shot, mortally, in the chest. He had faced many battles, but the fatal blow came while he was relaxing with his men. As such, he was caught fully unprepared. As men ran up the stairs to help him, the general had just one phrase, "Send for a clergyman; I wish to be baptized."

He never had time as an adolescent or young man. He never had time as a private or after he became a general. And his wound did not stop or slow down the war. Everything around him was left virtually unchanged -- except for the general's priorities. With only minutes left before he entered eternity, the one thing he cared about was preparing for eternity. He wanted to be baptized. Thirty minutes later he was dead.

How was this general served by the remembrance of death? Hardly at all, because he remembered it too late.

To help us avoid such oversight, Thomas a Kempis urged, "Thou oughtest so to order thyself in all thy thoughts and actions, as if today thou wert about to die" (Imitation of Christ). As Vice President, George Bush represented the United States at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev's widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev's wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed: She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband's chest.

There, in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, and that that life was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that the same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband.

The thought of death came too late for an American Civil War general and a Soviet head of state -- will it come too late for us?

[see #3551, #3620-21 for full article]

We prefer to ignore or deny the realization that death is coming. In this we are not unlike previous generations. It was the teaching of the ancients, in fact, that helped me to gain perspective on death. The classical spiritual-life writers found great spiritual benefit in looking death in the face, seizing its reality, and making it their servant. They used death to teach them how to live.

Francois Fenelon, a seventeenth-century French mystic who wrote the classic “Christian Perfection,” spoke eloquently of the denial of death: “We consider ourselves immortal, or at least as though [we are] going to live for centuries. Folly of the human spirit! Every day those who die soon follow those who are already dead. One about to leave on a journey ought not to think himself far from one who went only two days before. Life flows by like a flood.”

Most of us recognize that we will eventually die, but this recognition is reserved for a distant event, decades from now, not today, this week, this month, this year. Death is a foreigner, not a close neighbor. Or so we live our lives, clutching fiercely to this illusion.

How else can we explain the fact that so many die without a will? We live without a will not because we believe we’ll never die, but because we don’t expect to die this week. Thus, we have more important tasks to take care of, meetings to attend, things to buy, decorations to hang.

REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS FUTURE

Why do we deny death? Fenelon believed we avoid the thought of it so we are not saddened by it. But this, he says, is shortsighted: “It will only be sad for those who have not thought about it.”

William Law, the eighteenth-century Anglican author of “A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life,” wrote that the living world’s brilliance blinds us from eternity and the reality of death. “The health of our bodies, the passions of our minds, the noise and hurry and pleasures and business of the world, lead us on with eyes that see not and ears that hear not.”

Part of this denial comes from the company we keep.

[see #3552 for denial of death, and illustrations of Civil War general and Brezhnev’s widow.]

John Climacus, a seventh-century ascetic who wrote Ladder of Divine Ascent, urged Christians to use the reality of death to their benefit: “You cannot pass a day devoutly unless you think of it as your last,” he wrote. He called the thought of death the “most essential of all works” and a gift from God. “The man who lives daily with the thought of death is to be admired, and the man who gives himself to it by the hour is surely a saint.”

Remembrance of death acts like a filter, helping us to hold on to the essential and let go of the trivial. John Climacus pointed out that a “man who has heard himself sentenced to death will not worry about the way theaters are run.”

TURNING EVERYTHING RIGHT-SIDE UP

Forgetting death tempts us to lose perspective. Thinking about eternity helps us retrieve it. I’m reminded of this every year when I figure my taxes. During the year, I rejoice at the paychecks and extra income, and sometimes I flinch when I write out the tithe and offering. I do my best to be a joyful giver, but I confess it is not always easy, especially when there are other perceived needs and wants.

At the end of the year, however, all of that changes. As I’m figuring my tax liability, I wince at every source of income and rejoice with every tithe and offering check — more income means more tax, but every offering and tithe means less tax. Everything is turned upside down, or perhaps, more appropriately, right-side up.

I suspect judgment day will be like that. Those things that bother us now, that force us out of our schedules — taking time out to encourage or help someone — will be the very things that we deem the most important. We may not remember the movie we skipped to paint that elderly person’s house, or the meeting we missed to visit that prisoner or sick person, but in eternity, we will remember the acts of kindness and love, and we will be glad we took the time to do them.

Death not only filters our priorities, it also filters our passions. In his Pensées, seventeenth-century French mathematician and theologian Blaise Pascal wrote, “To render passion harmless let us behave as though we had only a week to live.” All of us are captive to various passions; some good, some bad. Which ones will we follow?

William Law suggests we pick and choose according to how we will feel upon our death. “The best way for anyone to know how much he ought to aspire after holiness is to consider not how much will make his present life easy, but to ask himself how much he thinks will make him easy at the hour of death.” What men or women in their right mind would continue an affair if they really believed they might not wake up in the morning? What person would risk entering eternity in a drunken stupor? What fool would ignore his loved ones and God for one last night so that he could make another quick ten thousand just before he died? Thomas a Kempis agreed with such reasoning, arguing that the remembrance of death is a powerful force for spiritual growth: “Didst thou oftener think of thy death than of thy living long, there is no question but thou wouldst be more zealous to improve. If also thou didst but consider within thyself the infernal pains in the other world, I believe thou wouldst willingly undergo any labor or sorrow in this world, and not be afraid of the greatest austerity. But because these things enter not to the heart, and we still love those things only that delight us, therefore we remain cold and very dull in religion.”

When we schedule our priorities and follow our passions without regard to eternity, we are essentially looking into the wrong end of a telescope. Instead of seeing things more clearly, our vision becomes distorted. We miss the big picture. “Feasts and business and pleasures and enjoyments seem great things to us whilst we think of nothing else; but as soon as we add death to them, they all sink into an equal littleness; and the soul that is separated from the body no more laments the loss of business than the losing of a feast,” wrote Law.

It is only the denial of death that allows us to continue rebelling against God. It is only because we are presuming on some future time to set things right that we ever even consider letting them go wrong. Some of us will be surprised in our presumption; eventually our spirits will be dulled until we forget we are presuming, and death will catch us by surprise, like all the rest.

That is why Thomas a Kempis urged, “Labor now to live so, that at the hour of death thou mayest rather rejoice than fear.” That hour is coming. If it comes tonight, will you be able to rejoice at your state? Or does the mere thought strike fear into your soul? More is involved than just our eternal destiny. God’s mercy may well pass us into his eternal presence, but do we want to enter heaven after faithfully serving God to the best of our ability, or rather after some desperate, last-minute confession, realizing that we have wasted our life?

I want to enter death tired. I want to have spent what energy God has apportioned me. The cross-country races that were most satisfying to me were not the ones I won most easily, but the ones that took everything I had to win. Weariness produced by hard, diligent labor is a reward, not a curse. An eternal rest awaits all who know Christ, so why are we preoccupied with rest now?

Death becomes our servant, then, when we use it to reorder our priorities and to grow in grace and holiness. There is yet one more way we can use death to our benefit.

The sound of Martha's voice on the other end of the telephone always brought a smile to Brother Jim's face. She was not only one of the oldest members of the congregation, but one of the most faithful. Aunt Martie, as all of the children called her, just seemed to ooze faith, hope, and love wherever she went. This time, however, there seemed to be an unusual tone to her words.

"Preacher, could you stop by this afternoon? I need to talk with you." "Of course, I'll be there around three. Is that OK?" It didn't take long for Jim to discover the reason for what he had only sensed in her voice before. As they sat facing each other in the quiet of her small living room, Martha shared the news that her doctor had just discovered a previously undetected tumor. "He says I probably have six months to live".

Martha's words were naturally serious, yet there was a definite calm about her. "I'm so sorry to ..." but before Jim could finish, Martha interrupted. "Don't be. The Lord has been good. I have lived a long life. I'm ready to go. You know that."

"I know," Jim whispered with a reassuring nod.

"But I do want to talk with you about my funeral. I have been thinking about it, and there are things that I know I want."

The two talked quietly for a long time.

They talked about Martha's favorite hymns, the passages of Scripture that had meant so much to her through the years, and the many memories they shared from the five years Jim had been with Central Church. When it seemed that they had covered just about everything, Aunt Martie paused, looked up at Jim with a twinkle in her eye, and then added, "One more thing, preacher. When they bury me, I want my old Bible in one hand and a fork in the other."

"A fork?" Jim was sure he had heard everything, but this caught him by surprise. "Why do you want to be buried with a fork?"

"I have been thinking about all of the church dinners and banquets that I attended through the years," she explained, "I couldn't begin to count them all. But one thing sticks in my mind. At those really nice get-togethers, when the meal was almost finished, a server would come by to collect the dirty dishes."

"Sometimes, at the best meals, somebody would lean over my shoulder and whisper, 'You can keep your fork.' And do you know what that meant? Dessert was coming! It didn't mean a cup of Jell-O or pudding or even a dish of ice cream. You don't need a fork for that. It meant the good stuff, like chocolate cake or cherry pie! When they told me I could keep my fork, I knew the best was yet to come!"

"That's exactly what I want people to talk about at my funeral. Oh, they can talk about all the good times we had together. That would be nice. But when they walk by my casket and look at my pretty blue dress, I want them to turn to one another and say, 'Why the fork'? That's when I want you to tell them that I kept my fork because the best is yet to come!"

===================================================

Here is another version making the rounds on the internet:

There was a woman who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and had been given three months to live. So as she was getting her things "in order," she contacted her pastor and had him come to her house to discuss certain aspects of her final wishes.

She told him which songs she wanted sung at the service, what scriptures she would like read, and what outfit she wanted to be buried in. The woman also requested to be buried with her favorite Bible.

Everything was in order and the pastor was preparing to leave when the woman suddenly remembered something very important to her.

"There's one more thing," she said excitedly. "What's that?" the pastor replied.

"This is very important," the woman continued. "I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand."

The pastor stood looking at the woman, not knowing quite what to say.

"That surprises you, doesn't it?" the woman asked.

"Well, to be honest, I'm puzzled by the request," said the pastor.

The woman explained. "In all my years of attending church socials and potluck dinners, I always remember that when the dishes of the main course were being cleared, someone would inevitably lean over and say, 'Keep your fork.' It was my favorite part because I knew that something better was coming like velvety chocolate cake or deep-dish apple pie. Something wonderful, and with substance! So, I just want people to see me there in that casket with a fork in my hand and I want them to wonder, What's with the fork?' Then I want you to tell them:

'Keep your fork - the best is yet to come.'

The pastor's eyes welled up with tears of joy as he hugged the woman good-bye. He knew this would be one of the last times he would see her before her death. However, he also knew that the woman had a better grasp of Heaven than he did. She KNEW that something better was coming.

At the funeral people were walking by the woman's casket and they saw the pretty dress she was wearing and her favorite Bible and the fork placed in her right hand. Over and over, the pastor heard the question, "What's with the fork?" And over and over, he smiled.

During his message, the pastor told the people of the conversation he had with the woman shortly before she died. He also told them about the fork and about what it symbolized to her. The pastor told the people how he could not stop thinking about the fork and told them that they probably would not be able to stop thinking about it either. He was right.

Therefore, the next time you reach down for your fork let it remind you oh so gently, that the best is yet to come. Friends are a very rare jewel,indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear, they share a word of praise, and they always want to open their hearts to us.

#4373

*

Chin Wee's funeral was a graceful metaphor for his long life. It was simple and dignified. And it offered the mourners comfort and reassurance.

In a thoughtful eulogy, the officiating minister, the Rev. Michael Waco, used details and anecdotes to honor Wee's 82 years, citing his long-ago emigration from China in search of a new life, his military service for his newly adopted country, a long and devoted marriage. And he marveled at Wee's dedication in accomplishing a lifelong goal of sending his five children to college.

The mourners would not have guessed that Waco never met Wee -- or that it was his fourth funeral that day for a stranger.

It's among the most difficult of clerical tasks: to find the words, with barely a day's notice, to sum up an entire life that is wholly unfamiliar.

"My goal is to make the service as personal as possible," Waco said. "The greatest compliment I can get is to have the family say afterwards, 'It's as if you knew him.'"

Every day funeral homes scramble to find ministers to officiate at services for people with no pastors of their own. They're needed to bury the unchurched, the isolated and sometimes even the unidentified. Regular churchgoers' pastors may be unavailable, or ministers may have congregations so large that they aren't acquainted with every member.

Preparing a funeral for a stranger calls on a host of ministerial skills, not the least of which is the ability to prepare and deliver a sermon on a tight deadline, often interrupting routine clerical duties.

But those who make it a habit to "free-lance" funerals say they regard the job as part of their calling.

"If the family asks me, I feel like I have an obligation to that family," said Harold Elliott, a longtime Baptist minister and chaplain to the Arlington (Texas) Police Department. "If a funeral home asks me, I don't have any right to say no."

Over the years, Elliott has officiated at funerals in difficult, often painful circumstances.

"Homicides, suicides, traffic fatalities, crib deaths, everything you can name," he said. Those are not the times to grill families about the deceased's churchgoing habits, he said.

One of the saddest occasions, he said, was the funeral in September for a newborn baby girl, found dead in a trash bin outside a convenience store. Police have never found the baby's parents.

Elliott delivered a moving eulogy for the infant, christened "Angelica," during a service planned and paid for by donors who included police officers, firefighters and an Arlington funeral home.

"Angelica has now seen the face of God, and she will never experience darkness or sadness again," he said during the service, which drew 50 people to mourn a baby they never knew. "She will never be abandoned in the presence of he who promised never to leave or forsake her."

Far more common are funerals for those who, by choice or circumstance, have no regular pastor.

"It doesn't matter whether they're members or not," said the Rev. Dudley Dancer, an associate pastor at Lovers Lane United Methodist Church. "I strongly believe this is a service we need to provide, because I strongly believe that we're all children of God."

Willingness to take on strangers' funerals can involve the occasional bending of theological rules. Protestants have performed last rites to comfort grieving Catholic families; one Church of Christ minister recalls blundering through a Greek Orthodox service.

Some parish priests won't conduct funerals for nonparishioners. But Monsignor Larry Pichard of Cathedral Santuario de Guadalupe in Dallas said he never turns families away.

"Our intent is to bring God's care to that family, no matter where they are on their journey," he said. "The judgment is really up to God, not to us."

But it's sad and awkward, he said, when nonpracticing Catholics insist on a full funeral Mass in which they have forgotten how to participate.

"I do find it difficult to celebrate the Mass when the people don't know how to pray it," he said, citing the participatory ritual of prayers, responses and kneeling.

Instead, Pichard said, he encourages such families to choose a less ritualized service.

The Catholic tradition, he pointed out, does not call for a eulogy specifically for the deceased during the funeral.

"We're not really talking about that person's life, but about the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection," he said. "Of course," he added, smiling a little, "when we can put some icing on the cake, we do it."

Waco, a Disciples of Christ minister, served three congregations over 30 years, but now he specializes in funerals. He is a part-time staff member for several area funeral homes; the largest is Restland in North Dallas.

It is, he agreed, an unusual calling, but a valuable one. Conducting services for people who don't have a pastor is, in a sense, the emergency-room version of the pastoral care business. He has performed as many as six funerals in one day, and his self-imposed task is to tailor every service to the person who has died.

"Just because they may have been unchurched people doesn't mean we can't celebrate the life that was," he said. "I've done funerals forever, but it's only recently I came to realize how important they are."

Some families ask Waco to officiate at subsequent funerals; the son of a man whose funeral he performed last year asked this year for him to officiate at his wedding.

"In a sense, I become their pastor for a time," he said. "This is the time when people are the most vulnerable, and they need that care and compassion."

Yet sometimes there is no one for whom to care, nothing but a body to commit to the ground.

"I had one service with nobody there but the trust officer who settled the estate," Waco said. "There are some where no one is there but me and the funeral director at the graveside."

In those cases, he said, he can only offer what he believes everyone is entitled to in death.

"I just do a prayer, and words of commitment," he said.

Dancer said such services are sad and memorable. He has conducted lonely services for friendless paupers and for those who outlived their contemporaries.

"It's simple," he said. "Just Holy Scripture and the Lord's Prayer and a commitment into the hands of God. But it's something you don't forget."

And then there are funerals for those about whom there is little good to say.

"If you have a person who was exceedingly bad and everyone knows it, it's very difficult," Elliott said. But he officiates nonetheless. Every life, he said, is entitled to a funeral, even if it was squandered.

"I've known of some people who had no service, who just died and were cremated," he said. "We've not honored or dignified that person. Somebody, somewhere, probably cared for that person at some time."

Pichard agreed. "Even Mafia members have funerals," he said. "You hope for salvation; you hope for them to be with God."

Dancer said that when he meets a family -- often briefly and only once -- he tries to get as much information about the deceased as he can. And he seeks to offer pastoral care to survivors with no regular pastor to whom they can turn.

"It's what I call 'kitchen table theology,'" Dancer said. "It can really be in some ways a psychological release" for families stricken with grief or exhausted from nursing a relative through a final illness.

And sometimes, especially in cases where the deceased suffered a long illness, the family needs encouragement to remember the loved one's best years.

One family, he said, abruptly recalled that their father had been a crack naval engineer who helped develop crucial technology for building pontoon bridges. Another reminisced about their grandmother's love of opera music.

And often there's healing laughter as family members swap stories: "In most cases, it's the first time since the death they've sat down across the table and said, 'Let's talk about Dad.' Or they'll start telling the story of how Uncle Bill fell off the porch," Dancer said. "Nine times out of 10, they'll end up laughing."

Sometimes, Dancer said, he has to gently dig to pry the memories loose.

"They'll say, 'Dad's been in the nursing home with Alzheimer's for five years,' and I'll have to ask them to remember him before that," he said. "I'll start asking, Did he raise cats? Did he like the Cowboys? Did he have a garden?"

Dancer and other ministers say they count on such meetings to prepare their remarks for the funeral.

The stories create mini-portraits of a human life, and sometimes, Dancer said, he regrets not having known the deceased.

"I had an 87-year-old woman who, two weeks before she died, was riding a motorcycle," he said. "I told the family, 'She was my kind of gal.'"

It's those memories and anecdotes, Dancer said, that give the minister -- and, in turn, the mourners -- a chance to celebrate a life rather than a dry set of facts.

"The statistics in the obituary are not the person," he said. "The stories are who they are."

_______________

(c) 1998, The Dallas Morning News.

http://www.dallasnews.com/

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #15817]

An Illinois man who left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida was planning to meet his wife, who was on a business trip, the following day. When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick email. Unable to find the scrap of paper on which he had written her email address, he did his best to type it in from memory. Unfortunately, he missed one letter and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher's wife, whose husband had passed away only the day before.

When the grieving widow checked her email, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor in a dead faint. At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen:

Dearest wife,

Just got checked in. Everything is prepared for your arrival

tomorrow.

Your loving husband

===============================================================

In the same vein, from Rev. Dick Lewis:

FLORIST COMPLAINT

A new business was opening and one of the owner's friends wanted to send him flowers for the occasion. They arrived at the new business site and the owner read the card, "Rest in Peace".

The owner was angry and called the florist to complain.

After he had told the florist of the obvious mistake and how angry he was, the florist replied, "Sir, I'm really sorry for the mistake, but rather than getting angry, you should imagine this: somewhere there is a funeral taking place today, and they have flowers with a note saying, 'Congratulations on your new location'"

P.S. Sure is hot down here.

*

Rev. Bill Nicoson attended a funeral service for a twenty-five-year-old who had committed suicide. As the people were walking in they were given a business-sized card: on one side of the card was the number 0.000005 and on the other side was the number 0.999995. At a certain point during the sermon the pastor referred to the card and said, "We can either focus and remember that Joe committed suicide or we can remember what he did and who he was all of his life." He converted his age to hours and divided the total by the last hour of his life. He went on to say that Joe made one poor decision in the last hour of his life. He stated that obviously it did not please God but he lived a life that was pleasing to God most of his life. He answered all the questions pertaining to suicide that we are all faced with, such as, can a person still go to heaven if they have committed suicide, etc.

[Holwick - I added some detail, and took out some, to make this illustration clearer. I think the point veers too closely to salvation by works, where a life is judged by how it balances out, but it does bring in a sense of perspective in judging someone's rash decision.]

DO NOT STAND AT MY GRAVE AND WEEP

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the mornings hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

of quiet birds in circled flight,

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there, I did not die.

When you remove your hand from a glove, the form of the hand remains, but the substance that gave it life is gone. Our body is just a glove!

ST. LOUIS - Vallonia Smith got a down-home send-off after she died of heart disease at 59.

In a Wade Funeral Home room dubbed "Big Mama's Kitchen," loved ones played cards barely an arm's length from Smith's body in an open casket. Guests sipped iced tea and Kool-Aid near a stove with a platter of real fried chicken and a couple of fake pies. A loaf of Wonder Bread sat atop the refrigerator, and dishes were in a drainer near the sink.

"For those two hours, everybody was saying, 'Oooooh, this reminds me of Val,'" her daughter, Angela Harris, recalled of the wake. "No one said anything bad to me about it. Everyone said, 'This is a nice idea, it's different.' It had fond memories, and there wasn't a lot of crying."

Wade Funeral Home's nontraditional services, held in theater-quality sets like Big Mama's Kitchen, represent a new type of send-off designed to help take some of the grim out of reaper.

"We're convinced this is the wave of the future," said Slivy Edmonds Cotton, chairman and chief executive of Arizona-based Perpetua Inc., owner of Wade and four funeral homes in Chicago, Indianapolis and New York.

Wade's services include sports settings for fans who can rest in peace below a basketball goal or near a small fish-stocked pond where a sign notes "Fishing Season is Closed." There is even a recliner, remote control and TV.

"What we found is the new consumer is really looking for a difference, and they didn't like the way funeral directors were telling them how it should be done," Cotton said.

The special services have been chosen by roughly half of Wade's clients.

"It's not like you're at a funeral home; it's like you're at home. It makes it just a happy place to be," manager Aaron Grimes said. He added: "No one has said, 'That's creepy."'

Bob Vandenbergh, head of the 13,500-member National Funeral Directors Association, considers these "vignette" rites an extension of personalized services that the $20 billion-a-year industry has offered for years. Vandenbergh, who owns three Detroit-area funeral homes, said he does not mind such departures from "a cookie-cutter thing."

"A funeral should be a celebration, a recognition of someone's life," he said. "It's not people sitting solemnly in a pew or chair listening to 'The Old Rugged Cross' type of thing. There's nothing wrong with that, but sometimes it doesn't reflect on who the person was."

Margaret Cosey said her husband, Lourenzy, who died in June at 62, wanted his farewell to reflect his passion for hosting neighborhood cookouts.

So, next to Lourenzy Cosey's open casket during a wake at Wade's, a background showed an outdoor grill. The parlor smelled of roasted corn. A cooler was stocked with soda and iced tea. The music was jazz - the deceased's favorite.

"He always told me, 'Margaret, if I pass before you, I want everyone to be happy. I don't want a sad, drawn-out funeral,'" his wife said.

"It described him to a T. It relaxed the people. They were talking, and they were cheerful," she said. "It made it much easier because it was just like he was asleep, and we were at a holiday."

In his book "Balsamic Dreams: A Short But Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation," Joe Queenan complains that people have "transformed the traditional funeral service into a ludicrous stage show."

"Funerals are no longer somber rituals where we pay our respects to the dead. They are cabaret. They are parties, fun-fests, or what used to be known as happenings," he writes.

Mary Wong, a Florida grief counselor and author who developed a national directory of bereavement support groups and services, questioned the wisdom of the sets at Wade's.

"The last thing we want to do is have the image of a casket in a kitchen replayed in a survivor's mind every time they think of their loved one and every time they enter a kitchen in the future," she said.

She suggested that before such a service is chosen, family members, particularly children and teenagers, be consulted to make sure they are comfortable with the idea.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #13206]

"That man is a success who has lived well,

Laughed often and loved much;

Who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children;

Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;

Who leaves the world better than he found it,

Whether by a perfect poem or a rescued soul;

Who never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it;

Who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had."

--- Robert Louis Stevenson

I went to the funeral home to pay my respects to an old acquaintance. Some thoughtful person had placed in her hands a well-worn Bible. It looked fitting and symbolic. I could see how her face used to light up as she'd tell others of the Lord. Yes, it was most appropriate.

Later I was thinking: What if someone put the thing that seemed most appropriate in our hands after we die? Would it be a cigarette? A paper? A bottle? A fishing pole? Car keys? A deck of cards? A golf club? A worn Bible? Or even a Bible not worn at all?

I just wonder what they would put in mine?

________

Englewood (CO) Examiner

“If we don't know WHAT is beyond the grave, we do know WHO is beyond the grave.”

-- William Sloane Coffin

"I don't mind dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

-- Woody Allen

"When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity."

-- T. S. Eliot

"Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die."

-- Joe Louis

“Christ has made of death a narrow starlit strip between the companionships of yesterday and the reunions of tomorrow.”

-- William Jennings Bryan

As a pastor for many years I discovered there were certain things that were extremely difficult to do. It was difficult when I had to tell young women (or men) in the churches I served that I could not perform their wedding if they insisted on marrying an unbeliever (2 Cor. 6:14).

I also found it particularly difficult to carry the news of a sudden or accidental death to the spouse or family of the deceased loved one. It was likewise painful to see promising church members wreck their lives through wrong choices. It was difficult to see bright high school students go off to college and have their faith shattered by the insidious teachings of liberal and humanistic professors.

However, one of the most difficult things I ever had to do as a pastor was conduct funeral services for those who had never professed faith in Christ or who never lived out their once-professed faith. And I had to do it on many occasions –- probably many more times than I even realized.

It happens like this: a grieving widow would call and say with a broken heart and with tears in her voice, “Pastor, my husband had a heart attack last night and we took him to the hospital, but he was dead on arrival. I can’t believe it has happened, but we need your help. I know he was not a church member, but we would like for you to preach his funeral.”

What does a pastor say to an understandably emotional woman who has not even yet come to grips with the dimensions of her loss? You do the only reasonable and respectable thing you can do and respond in the affirmative.

A visit is typically made to the home of the deceased to console the bereaved and get some information in order to write the funeral message. In the process of gathering information it is obvious that the woman’s departed husband never professed faith in Christ.

In certain cases a pastor may be called upon to conduct the funeral for an individual who may have joined a church years earlier, but never gave any indication of being born again or that Christ was vitally important to him.

In either case some pastors are torn between integrity and compassion and in an effort to add comfort to the family they become universalists -– giving the family some hope that their loved one may have been granted eternal life by a gracious and benevolent God. Universalism is the belief that there will be a universal reconciliation between humanity and the divine and that God is too good to send anyone to hell.

We have all heard eulogies ushering celebrities, politicians, athletes and entertainers into heaven who in some cases were as far from that celestial city as a downtown tomcat is from Home Life magazine.

Judy Garland attained international stardom, but died in 1969 in London, England, at 47 years of age. The coroner stated at the inquest that she died from “an incautious self-overdosage” of barbiturates.

She had been married five times, lived a life of promiscuity and was certainly not known for her Christian faith. However, at her funeral the Rev. Peter A. Delaney, of Marylebone Church in London, gave her a Christian eulogy in a 20-minute Episcopal service. Mourners sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and 1 Corinthians 13 was read.

Years later, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, known as the D.C. Madam, committed suicide by hanging herself. Her suicide earlier this year came as she was facing prison time for money laundering and racketeering charges in connection to what prosecutors described as a high-end prostitution ring whose clients included members of Washington’s political and social elite.

In a suicide note left to her sister, Palfrey stated, “Know I am at peace, with complete certainty, I believe Dad is standing watch -- prepared to guide me into the light.”

On her blog Gina de Vries wrote a eulogy for Palfrey, stating:

I always do what Nana (Franscesa, my great-grandmother) taught me

to do when grieving –- light candles, say prayers, cook a meal

for friends, buy some flowers if I can find them fresh, set up an

altar. Wish the person well on their way home.

Deborah, I hope you get there with ease and peace. I’m sorry

your way out of this world was so rocky, that you were not

treated with the grace and graciousness that every human being

deserves,” de Vries wrote. “I’m praying that Franscesa –- or

someone very like her –- is there to greet you with a meal, some

flowers, and some sweetness on the other side.

I am not judging Judy Garland or Deborah Jeane Palfrey and hope somehow they were redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, but Garland’s Christian funeral and Palfrey’s eulogy seem to be lacking reality.

In actual fact, a funeral service is not for the deceased. It is primarily for the family and friends; and while a Christian minister may be called upon to conduct the service, he must not be guilty of suggesting that the unredeemed will inherit eternal life. To do so is to be disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst.

If a pastor is true to the Word of God, he cannot change or minimize the Bible’s warning that the consequence of unbelief is condemnation (John 3:18).

To suggest or hint that someone who has never been saved is somehow headed for heaven does nothing but confuse the mourners and give the false impression that one can go to heaven without trusting in Christ who is the only way to God (John 14:6).

The carefully-crafted remarks of a Christian minister can convey the Gospel message of hope and certainty to those who need it most.

________

J. Gerald Harris is editor of the Christian Index, online at ChristianIndex.com

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[Original illustration at this number was moved to HolwickID #2900]

As a young man, D.L. Moody was called upon to suddenly to preach a funeral sermon. He hunted all through out the Four Gospels trying to find one of Christ’s funeral sermons, but searched in vain. He found that Christ broke up every funeral He attended.

Death could not exist where He was. When the dead heard His voice they sprang to life. Jesus said, I am the resurrection, and the life (John 11:25).

=============

Another version from Rev. Don Robinson's sermon "Power Of Life" (Kerux Sermon #12225)

Early in Dwight L. Moody’s ministry he was called upon to do his first funeral. He wanted to do it right, so he went to the Bible to consider how Jesus would have done it.

Moody found an amazing truth -- Jesus didn’t hold funeral services! Whenever Jesus came into contact with those who were dead he gave them life!

Cheryl Horsfall is a freelance copy-writer in Manhattan. She is partial to ideas of the afterlife. A few years ago, she wrote a screenplay called “Parlor Tricks,” about a young woman who moves into an apartment above a funeral home. The woman becomes involved with the restless and misanthropic shade of a young man who inhabits the place. She helps him settle difficulties having to do with his leaving the world, and he helps her with difficulties in her life.

Horsfall is thirty-seven. In October of 2006, she received a letter from a New York State agency informing her that she was deceased. The letter did not say how she had died or when. About a year earlier, she had been let go from a big advertising firm as part of what she calls a general bloodletting. While she was at the unemployment office, listening to a woman read instructions to a room of applicants, a man appeared and announced that he was offering free health insurance, provided by the state. Horsfall applied and was accepted. After a year, she applied to have the insurance renewed. Her coverage was denied, because “our records indicate that this person is deceased,” the letter said. If she disagreed, she could request a hearing. The number to schedule a hearing was connected to an answering machine. Horsfall left many messages, but no one called her back.

Meanwhile, Horsfall held a wake, in her apartment. She scheduled it for November 1st, the Day of the Dead. She built a shrine, with flowers arranged by a floral designer she knew, and candles and photographs. She served funeral food -- casseroles and coconut cake. “I thought I’d dress well,” she says, “so I put on a corset top and a ball-gown skirt, which I used to wear to Viennese Waltzes at the Waldorf.” Several old boyfriends showed up, and she assured them all that they were remembered in her will.

Shortly after the wake, Horsfall realized that there could be consequences to being dead. Her work takes her abroad, and she wondered what might happen if her passport was checked. On the advice of her insurance provider, Horsfall tried to correct the problem through a government office at Bellevue. “It was a room with many, many people waiting. You take a number, and you get forty, and they’re working on twelve, and you realize it’s not a matter that you can settle at lunch-time.” Eventually, she received word that she had a hearing scheduled for April 12, 2006, the Wednesday before Easter. “I’m thinking it will be a little courtroom, like ‘Night Court,’” Horsfall went on. “My name will be called, and I will stand before the judge and take a really deep breath and say simply, ‘The defense rests.’” Instead, she reported to an office building on West Thirty-fourth Street. She waited in a corridor until she was called to the desk of a middle-aged woman. Horsfall handed the woman the notification and said, “Do you see why I’m here?” The woman opened Horsfall’s case -- the state had closed it again -- and told her that it would eventually resolve in her favor. Horsfall asked her to sign a certificate affirming that she was alive, which she had made on her computer, but the woman said she wasn’t allowed to.

In Madison Square Park, Horsfall said, “I’m a living, thriving New Yorker again.” On her lap was a folder containing documents she had collected, among them one acknowledging that she was alive. “You’d think it would be the easiest thing in the world to make a call and fix, being dead or alive,” she said, putting letters back into the folder. “But, even with all the services there are in New York, there’s no such hot line.”

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[Original illustration at this number was added to HolwickID #2094]

“I learned something early in life,” says heavyweight champion George Foreman. “If you sell, you’ll never starve. In any other profession, you can find yourself out on the street, saying, ‘They don’t want me anymore.’ But if you can sell, you will never go hungry.”

Indeed, over the years Foreman has sold mufflers, hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, chicken and cruises on TV commercials. And every week he sells salvation to his parishioners as an evangelistic minister in Houston.

“What I’ve done more than anything is preach funerals,” he says. “That’s the hardest of all. When someone who has been married 40 to 50 years loses a loved one, I’ve got to make them know it’s gonna be okay - I’ve got to sell them on living. But it works. Two years later they’ve got a grandchild, or an aunt or a cousin has moved in with them, and they’re all wrapped up in life again. I tell you, there’s nothing better than life.”

________

Reader’s Digest, November, 1995, p. 6

Baby Boomer narcissism crowds out Christian meaning from a familiar ritual

________

Like most people, I don’t particularly relish encounters with death. But, welcome or not, I’ve had my fair share. I’ve clasped a woman’s hand as her breathing slowed, became sporadic, and finally ceased. Through the cramped hallways of an ancient farmhouse, down which no stretcher could be maneuvered, I helped heft the sheet-wrapped body of a family’s matriarch to carry her to the waiting hearse. When a small Oklahoma church mourned a member who’d fallen asleep at the wheel, late at night, early in life, I was there, thinking of the joyless “Joy to the World” the band of believers had choked out the day before that December 26th funeral. In each of these situations, the death of the young or the old, there was within me a desire to lighten the load of grief borne by the survivors, to shine a ray of life into the gloom of death.

Because of that desire, when I first heard about families opting to have a so-called “Celebration of Life” service for their departed loved ones, instead of a funeral, my interest was piqued. Perhaps here was a viable alternative. The name alone effuses a positive, uplifting appeal that “funeral” or “memorial service” can’t begin to match. Celebrations are good, right? And, life, well, who can possibly have any qualms about that? Perhaps this approach to confronting death, at least the ceremonial part of saying goodbye, would help alleviate some of the pain associated with, and expressed in, a more traditional rite. Maybe it was time to have a funeral for the funeral.

What is a Celebration of Life?

So what makes a Celebration of Life different? Rather than a focus upon the loss of a loved one, this service rewinds the present into the past, to draw the mourners back into the life lived by the deceased. It’s like a miniature, enacted biography of the person, with a focus upon those qualities, interests, and achievements that his family and friends found most endearing about him. Whereas a traditional funeral is structured around a liturgy, in this ceremony stories about the person — serious or lighthearted — take center stage. It is his funeral, after all, so shouldn’t it be about him?

To use an example provided by the National Funeral Directors Association, suppose the deceased was a boot-wearing, hat-sporting cowboy named Wyatt. What might Wyatt’s Celebration of Life look like? How might he “want to ride off into the sunset one last time?” Rather than using a hearse, why not a covered wagon to transport Wyatt’s body to the cemetery? His saddle, bridle, and favorite rope could be displayed at the service. Since he was more into George Strait than Charles Wesley, country and western songs could form the musical background of his celebration. If there’s a procession, his horse could plod along in it. And, since most services include a meal afterward, a BBQ would be right down Wyatt’s alley In all this, the perspective shifts from the tear-filled reality that Wyatt is dead to the smile-filled remembrance that Wyatt was once alive. Every detail in this Celebration of Life must reinforce that death is not mourned so much as life is celebrated.

To guarantee that the Celebration of Life dovetails with the desires of the departed, pre-death planning is strongly encouraged. Indeed, it’s almost a must. What better way to have the celebration you want than to plan it yourself? In fact, this is a large part of its appeal. This possibility resonates especially well with that aging, voluminous generation for whom self-determination is the spice of life: the baby boomers. According to Mark Duffey, the CEO of Everest, a funeral planning and concierge service, the boomer generation is revolutionizing the funeral industry:

“If you’re 75 or older, the mentality is: ‘I want to have the same funeral that we had for Aunt Mildred; I don’t want to be a bother, I don’t want to be showy,’” he said. “You get below 70 and, all of a sudden, it’s changing. Now people are saying, I’m a boomer and I want to be talked about.”

And be talked about they will, for if a Celebration of Life is anything, it is individualism’s last hurrah, in which not God, not death, not resurrection, not even mourners are the focal point, but the deceased, who is host of his very own posthumous party.

Two Grave Dangers

Danger affects its greatest damage in a society when it makes its debut dressed in the garb of positivity. When it looks a culture in the eye, warmly shakes hands, and introduces itself as something that can “improve,” “uplift,” or “make it easier on everyone involved,” then it stands a much greater chance of making that good first impression a lasting one. It needs something else as well, a playground-safe name, one as sweet as apple pie and down-home as Chevrolet.

Properly introduced, skillfully named, and packaged to appeal to the ego, such danger rapidly infiltrates a culture to inculcate its agenda. And if can do so by worming its way into a common cultural phenomenon, such as a service for the deceased, and gradually morph it into something “new and improved,” well, so much the better. That is precisely what the Celebration of Life has been up to. Although they may initially appear innocuous, or even attractive, these celebrations represent a dual danger: they perpetuate and even formalize our culture’s egocentrism, and they rob life of its true value by refusing to address its end and the meaning thereof. Let’s take a look at each of these dangers.

Necronarcissism

Perhaps egocentrism, even in death, is best illustrated by one of the most memorable scenes from “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” While Tom and his pals Huck and Joe were off hiding on a nearby island, pretending to be pirates, the townsfolk assumed the worst about their disappearance. A funeral was planned for the three boys, victims, no doubt, of those muddy Mississippi waters. Tom and his comrades couldn’t resist the temptation to attend their own funeral. Hiding in an unused gallery of the church, they were all ears as the minister eulogized the “graces” and “winning ways” of the lads, to which he and so many others had been blind while the boys were still among the living.

Such was the eloquence of the preacher that “the congregation became more and more moved, as the pathetic tale went on, till at last the whole company broke down and joined the weeping mourners in a chorus of anguished sobs, the preacher himself giving way to his feelings, and crying in the pulpit.” Seizing this opportunity, the three dead boys strolled down the aisle of the church into this mayhem of mourning, leaving all in attendance temporarily dumbfounded. Shock, however, soon gave way to cries of joy from the families, as they embraced and rained down kisses upon them. As Tom stood there, basking in the glory of being the center of attention, he “looked around upon the envying juveniles about him and confessed in his heart that this was by far the proudest moment of his life.”

The praises he heard heaped upon him from the pulpit, the tear-tale signs that his death had unloosed such an outpouring of grief, and the envy of his fellows conspired together to make this “by far the proudest moment of [Tom’s] life.” The irony, of course, is that this acme of pride was reached at his own funeral. Every eulogizing word boosted his ego. Every tear watered his pride. He was able to twist the ceremony that confronted death and loss into one in which he gained enviable status in life. Tom made sure that Tom’s funeral was all about Tom.

While this youth’s novel antics make for a good story and a hearty laugh, juvenile as they obviously are, in the real world such all-about-me-ness is not nearly as funny. Indeed, it is destructive. What makes community life viable, in groups as small as a family or large as a country, is the will of individuals to makes sacrifices for others, to consider more than their own needs and wants, and to act accordingly. The more robust this other-focused approach to life is, the healthier the community will be. For that reason, there is no greater threat to the cohesion and perpetuation of a society than narcissism. The narcissist operates not according to an objective set of values or beliefs, nor are the needs of others an impetus for his actions, but his whole world is centered in the navel at which he gazes. The be-all and end-all reason for his existence is the man in the mirror. Therefore, the question he poses, whenever any decision must be made, is quite simply this: “What’s in it for me?”

Now that it’s becoming increasingly popular to plan my own end-of-life service in a way that ensures that I will be the center of attention, that I will be talked about, that it will be “by far the proudest moment of my life,” egocentrism extends beyond this life into a kind of necronarcissism. We may not be as lucky as Tom, eavesdropping on our own eulogy, and gorging our pride thereby, but we’ll at least plan our own going-away party to guarantee that the answer to “What’s in it for me?” meets our qualifications.

Let it be said that, yes, it is well and good to be involved in planning your own funeral: choosing hymns and readings; pallbearers and the minister; and dealing with the nitty-gritty of casket selection, plot purchase, and the like. Such planning can relieve the family of making decisions under the stress of grief. What is at issue is not planning but priority. Will the priority of the end-of-life service be the exaltation of the individual or will it confront the reality of death honestly and constructively. And that brings up a second, more serious, concern with a Celebration of Life.

Downplaying Death

The other danger revolving around a Celebration of Life is harder to detect, for it is camouflaged by euphemistic language and wears a smiling mask that whispers half-truths that we, especially in the throes of grief, want to believe as if they’re nothing short of gospel. The danger is simply this: that we downplay death and, in so doing, fail to fully appreciate life. Stripped of its euphemistic language, the get-together billed as a “celebration” or even a “party” is, in truth, a gathering of mourners around a corpse. And that dead body not only preaches that death has claimed this particular life, but it betokens our own inevitable demise. To the extent that we bury our head in the sand when confronted with the reality of death, to that same extent we miss out on an opportunity to learn more about, and to appreciate more deeply, the life that is ours.

It should come as no surprise that a culture which has euphemized the beginning of life has also euphemized its end. A woman is not pregnant with a child, but an “embryo” or a “fetus.” If that “fetus” is unwanted, the “patient” can opt to exercise her “reproductive rights” by going to a “medical professional” to “terminate” the pregnancy through “abortion.” These euphemisms are convenient shields behind which one can hide when confronted with the truth that a mother can hire someone to kill her baby. They are verbal enablers of self-deception, vague, generic utterances into which we can stuff whatever meaning suits our fancy or pacifies our conscience. In the case of abortion, euphemisms enable our culture to look the truth of life square in the face and deny its existence. In the case of a Celebration of Life, euphemisms apply the makeup of life to the face of death.

Welcome to a world in which the womb becomes a casket and funerals become fun.

If you fast-forward to the end of life you will find euphemisms galore, along with the relatively new formalization of death’s disguise in the Celebration of Life. Whereas a funeral, at least in traditional Christianity, takes death seriously, and balances the truth of grief and loss with the hope of life and resurrection, the Celebration of Life looks neither to the present of grief nor the future of hope, but solely to the past. Its focus is neither faith nor hope but only love of what was lost. And in this case, the greatest of these is not love. Call it a celebration all you want; life is not so much celebrated as death is ignored. Therein lies a great tragedy, for a Celebration of Life is a missed opportunity to understand death aright.

In the Christian tradition, neither life nor death is ‘natural.’ Life is always a gift from God and death is always the consequence of sin. Embedded within human nature is a mortality originally alien to it, but now inextricably united to our nature. Each death bears witness to that fact. Any talk of life which fails to talk of death, its origin and cause, is like drinking from a mirage. When a funeral degenerates into a Celebration of Life, mourners may find temporary relief in the nostalgia of the memories, but they will be deprived of true and lasting healing that comes only after confronting death and finding life in Another.

What the Bereaved Truly Need

While the old adage, “A funeral is for the living,” is true, it is an ambiguous truth. It leaves unanswered the question: for what purpose is it for the living? The assumption behind the saying is that death creates a need, or needs, that must be addressed. While these needs vary in kind and number from individual to individual, at the core of them all is this: the need to find that death is not the end, that life will have the last word.

Despite its name, a Celebration of Life is ill-equipped to address that. Its focus is upon a dead person, not a living and vivifying God. Nor does it take seriously the reality and cause of death, without which life cannot be understood. Indeed, it seems an ideal Trojan horse to roll into a religious service, for inside it is hidden many of the same errors that devalue life in our culture.

The bereaved need, and deserve, something better. They deserve a service that speaks frankly and honestly about death, while anchoring the survivors in a hope that extends beyond this world. If any life is to be celebrated, let it be the life of the One who alone can lighten the load of grief borne by the survivors, and who shines a ray of his life into the gloom of death.

________

Chad Bird has served as a pastor and assistant professor of Old Testament Theology at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

Lewis Grizzard said that when Virgil Crabtree died, the minister tried to soothe the family by saying that “there is good in everybody.” But, “Everybody knew that Virgil Crabtree couldn't have gone to heaven. He made and ran bad moonshine, got into a fight every Saturday night at the Moose Club, cursed on Sunday, and refused to bathe regularly. The preacher might as well have been honest about it and told the family what they already knew anyway, that Virgil couldn't have gotten through the Pearly Gates with a gold American Express card and written recommendations from three of the original disciples.” [1] Can we?

_____________

1. Lewis Grizzard, CHILI DAWGS ALWAYS BARK AT NIGHT, pp. 57-58.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #17823]

Firm belief in resurrection hasn't kept Christians from caring - and arguing - about what happens to the bodies of the dead.

I hate to dwell on a grisly subject, but the news from Noble, Georgia, got me thinking about cremation. I was especially intrigued by a comment on NPR that cremation has become more popular in America - requested in about 25 percent of deaths nationwide, with much higher percentages in Florida and California - as Americans shift from a Judeo-Christian emphasis on the body to a more Greek or Hindu emphasis on the soul.

It had never occurred to me that there was anything un-Judeo-Christian about cremation. None of the evangelical churches I've attended made a big deal about it. Historically, though, the NPR commentator has a point: acceptance of cremation among Christians is very recent and hardly universal.

While surrounding cultures practiced a variety of death rites, from mummification to incineration on elaborate funeral pyres, Old Testament Jews clearly preferred burial - often in a cave, and usually near other family members. Old Testament law, however, says nothing definitive about burial regulations. Death by burning was prescribed as a punishment for some particularly heinous offenders, and denial of a proper burial was viewed as a disgrace, but burning after death was not directly addressed. The one apparent example of cremation (of Saul and his sons, in 1 Sam. 31:12) is ambiguous.

New Testament Jews and Christians favored burial as well, though the New Testament also lacks specific regulations for handling the dead. Its sparse texts on the topic seem to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.

As Christianity spread and eventually became the official religion in the Roman Empire and elsewhere, culturally Christian burial practices spread as well. The growing importance of saintly relics added more weight to the tradition of careful bodily preservation. When Christian missionaries encountered cultures with different funerary practices, adoption of Christian customs became a sign of changed allegiance. For example, the body of King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway, who is credited (posthumously) with the conversion of his people to Christianity in the eleventh century, was hidden in sand, dug up, and reburied by newly pious members of a culture whose folklore celebrated funeral pyres. (See Christian History issue 63, "Dead Man Converting.")

Cremation did not emerge as a major concern in traditionally Christian lands until 1870, when an Italian professor named Brunetti developed the first modern cremation apparatus. The Catholic church responded in 1886 with an official ban on cremations. Oddly, church pronouncements from the era take issue less with the practice per se than with anti-Catholic ceremonies associated with it and anti-Catholic organizations (particularly Freemasons) seen as being behind it. "The Church has opposed from the beginning a practice which has been used chiefly by the enemies of the Christian Faith," an article from the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia avers. Even so, in recognition of cremation's rapidly increasing popularity in Europe, by 1892 Catholic ministers were excused from unwilling or unwitting cooperation with the practice.

Orthodox Christians remain staunchly opposed to cremation. The Roman Catholic church dropped its ban in 1963 and moved to allow funeral rites for those who choose cremation in 1969. The Catholic church still prefers burial, however, and Catholics seem more comfortable with cremation after the funeral than before. Most American Protestant denominations occupy the same position.

Interestingly, though lower costs are often mentioned as a reason for the popularity of cremation, people with higher incomes are significantly more likely to choose cremation than are people with lower incomes. Higher-income Americans are also, statistically, less likely to hold Christian beliefs. So while I don't think the increasing incidence of cremation means that America is becoming more Greek or Hindu, the increase does seem to indicate a move away from traditional Christianity - though, in this case, Christian tradition may be more cultural than explicitly biblical.

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Your Last Day

Read: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober.

--1 Thessalonians 5:6

What if you were told this morning that today was to be your last day on earth? How would you spend its fleeting hours? Whom would you insist on seeing? Would your behavior differ radically from what it usually is?

Someone has wisely said, "You should treat every day as if it's your last one, because one of these days you're going to be right."

There's no getting around it. Whether our earthly life ends by accident, illness, the ravages of age, or our Lord's return, one of these days will be our last. That's why we should guard so carefully the things we do and the words we say.

We ought to be tying up the loose ends of long-neglected matters by expressing our love and gratitude to others, by seeking reconciliation with an alienated friend, or by sharing the gospel with a neighbor.

Perhaps you've even been putting off accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior until some more convenient day. But that day may never come. Since your last day on earth can be so unexpected, heed Paul's inspired words: "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2).

Are you living each day as if it were your last? --VCG

Believe in Christ, redeem the time,

Prepare without delay;

That death is certain should affect

The way you live today. --Hess

What would you change if this day were your last?

Engraved on a tombstone were words that touched the heart of author Max Lucado. The epitaph did not give the dates of her birth or death. It included only her name, the names of her two husbands, and this melancholy mini-biography:

Sleeps, but rests not.

Loved, but was loved not.

Tried to please, but pleased not.

Died as she lived -- alone.

Those words can be applied to the lives of unhappy multitudes of people who feel lonely and unloved. They may try to reach out and make friends, but their best efforts often prove futile.

The gospel has a message for any of us who, like that woman, feel we belong to that frustrated legion of the lonely and unloved. It's the good news about the Friend who cared enough to die as our substitute on the cross. It's about the Friend who loves each of us with a love that can never be alienated, who sticks closer than a brother, and who understands us completely.

That Friend is Jesus Christ. When in faith we reach out and grasp His downstretched, nail-pierced hand, we are gripped by the love that will never let us go.

Have you asked Jesus to be your Friend? --VCG

No one ever cared for me like Jesus,

There's no other friend so kind as He;

No one else could take the sin and darkness from me,

Oh, how much He cared for me. --Weigle

Though human friendships may sometimes fail, Christ's friendship will always prevail.

Rest--In Peace

Read: Psalm 4

I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. --Psalm 4:8

Some time ago I read about a youngster who was rattling off the words of this bedtime prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep;

If I should die before I wake,

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take.

But when he came to the line "If I should die before I wake," he got mixed up and said, "If I should wake before I die."

This started me thinking. Many people lay their heads on their pillows at night without being sure of the destiny of their souls should they die before they wake. Others have so much anxiety about the next day that they would prefer to die before they wake. Family problems, emotional struggles, or employment difficulties make them wish they would be taken out of this life before the morning sun forces them to face another agonizing day.

This doesn't need to be our experience. By placing our trust in the Lord, we can close our eyes at night with the assurance that the problems of tomorrow will not be greater than the God of eternity. Yes, we can fall asleep with the confidence that we are in God's care. We can have the certainty that whether we die before we wake, or wake before we die, all is well. --RWD

Tomorrow's plans I do not know,

I only know this minute;

But He will say, "This is the way,

Don't be afraid, walk in it." --Anon.

When you put your cares in God's hands, He puts his peace in your heart.

How Will You Be Remembered?

Read: Psalm 90:1-12

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. --Psalm 90:12

When we are young, we tend to live as if we think we'll never die. Yet the psalmist said that if we want to gain a heart of wisdom, we need to start numbering our days, whatever our age (90:12). The best way to number them is to make sure that our life is patterned each day after the example of Jesus. Only then can we anticipate that our life will not have been lived in vain.

James Dobson, a well-known authority on the family, tells a story about his father, who was greatly loved by all who knew him. James Dobson Sr. spent much time in intercessory prayer, considering prayer for others his most important business on earth. In fact, he specified in his will that only two words were to be put on his tombstone following his name: HE PRAYED.

Of the thousands of verbs in our language, by which one are you likely to be remembered? He served. She cared. He supported. She praised. What if dishonoring verbs are linked with you because of thoughtlessness or selfishness? He cheated. She complained. It's not too late to repent and trade those descriptions in for Christ-honoring ones. Then trust God to build them into your character. That's the best way to number your days! --JEY

Show me the way, Lord, let my light shine

As an example of good to mankind;

Help them to see the patterns of Thee,

Shining in beauty, lived out in me. --Neuer

Living for the Lord leaves a lasting legacy.