Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Ponder Anew

Home
Evangelical
Resurrecting the Funeral

Resurrecting the Funeral

Last updated on: February 9, 2016 at 8:44 pm by Jonathan Aigner

Resurrecting the Funeral 2016-02-09T20:44:33-05:00 Jonathan Aigner

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I haven’t been to many good funerals lately.

In a real sense, of course, that’s an awful thing to say. Funerals are necessary, but can they really be good? Well, I think so, in that they can be done well, or they can be a completely dead exercise.

In our attempts to gloss over its reality, we fail to admit that death still carries a mighty sting, a sting that affects all of us – even the strongest, the ablest, the most self-sufficient – and there’s nothing we can do about it. Death happens. It hurts. It sucks. It taunts us like a bigger, stronger bully, who has flattened us on the playground and asks, “What are you going to do about it?”

And we have no answer. We can do nothing.

So we try and ignore the ugliness of it, and try to just have a good time. We talk about how much we loved the deceased. How good or successful they were. Uncle Bob will stand up with a guitar and sing a song he wrote on the airplane about that one time they went camping and things got out of hand.

To formalize that denial, we call it a “celebration of life” service. Service may be too strong a word. Gathering. I’ve been to a few that could be called a party. Others failed miserably to be some sort of celebration. Coming face to face with a lifeless mortal husk tends to be a buzz kill. And the modern church tends to avoid any time when lament is the proper response. “That stuff doesn’t bring people to Jesus!” they say.

But, yes friends, it does.

When you lament over a death, you are in profound faith, maybe the most profound human faith possible.

You’re saying to God, through your grief, anger, despair, “Where are you? If only you were here, it would make all the difference.”

A “celebration of life” points to a dead person. A funeral points to the cross.

A “celebration of life” sidesteps grief. A funeral confronts grief head-on.

A “celebration of life” ignores resurrection. A funeral depends on resurrection.

Here are a few ways to keep a celebration of life from breaking out at your funeral.

1. Preserve a worship service. The Christian story is the focus, particularly God’s mighty acts through Jesus Christ that broke the curse of death.

2. Don’t deny the reality of grief. Death is awful. Grief is a natural response. Don’t tell the bereaved to smile, be happy. Don’t paint God as the ultimate cosmic jerk with, “God just needed another angel.” Shut up, and sit with them in their sorrow.

3. Point to the cross, not the casket. I can’t remember a funeral when someone, either eulogizer, family member, or minister didn’t say, “We’re here to celebrate his/her life, not mourn his/her death.” Actually, we are there to mourn loss, and more importantly, shake a defiant fist at death, point to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, and say, “This is not the final word.”

3. Stick to the liturgy. Last year, the church where I worked was called upon to hold a funeral for a five-year-old who lost her life in a tragic accident. When I walked into the Sanctuary, the sight of the closed casket was overwhelming. My only coherent thought was, “Caskets aren’t supposed to be small.” There are simply no words. And too often when we try to force the words, we say silly, stupid, harmful things. Liturgy gives us the words when we simply can’t find them. So we sang, and we prayed, and we read, and we proclaimed.

4. Serve Holy Communion. There is no better time. When our hearts are broken, we cling to the great mystery of faith.

Christ has died.

Christ is risen.

Christ will come again.

5. Shun sentimentality. Who cares that I was a cute baby or earned a weird combination of degrees or held positions or possessed a dry, ironic humor that caused more stifled giggles than loud eruptions of laughter? Who cares that I wrote a blog? Who doesn’t have a blog these days? Who cares that I loved baseball? Who cares that I hated clowns, football, and parades? My friends and family can have lunch in the fellowship hall afterwards and talk about all those things if they choose. If they want to remember me, eulogize me, laugh and cry about the good times, fine.

But not at my funeral.

Funerals aren’t celebrations of human life. Funerals are proclamations of another life, a life that ended in a death that ended in a life.

That is the life worth celebrating.

Death sucks. It just sucks. And when we lose someone we love, we remember how badly it sucks. And we helplessly face the fact that we can’t do a damn thing about it.

It’s not supposed to be that way.

But Jesus lives, and so shall we.

And that makes all the difference.

(The following is a plan I’ve put together for my own funeral, which I hope is not for a long, long time. It follows the order outlined in The United Methodist Book of Worship.)

A SERVICE OF DEATH AND RESURRECTION

ENTRANCE

GATHERING
Dying, Christ destroyed our death.
Rising, Christ restored our life.
Christ will come again in glory.
As in baptism Jonathan put on Christ,
so in Christ may Jonathan be clothed with glory.
Here and now, dear friends, we are God’s children.
What we shall be has not yet been revealed;
but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is.
Those who have this hope purify themselves
as Christ is pure.

THE WORD OF GRACE
Jesus said, I am the resurrection and I am life.
Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live,
and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
I died, and behold I am alive for evermore,
and I hold the keys of hell and death.
Because I live, you shall live also.

GREETING
Friends, we have gathered here to praise God.
We come together in grief, acknowledging our human loss.
May God grant us grace, that in pain we may find comfort,
in sorrow hope, in death resurrection.

HYMN – UMH #64
Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty
NICAEA

PRAYER
The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Let us pray.

O God, who gave us birth,
you are ever more ready to hear
that we are to pray.
You know our needs before we ask,
and our ignorance in asking.
Give to us now your grace,
that as we shrink before the mystery of death,
we may see the light of eternity.
Speak to us once more
your solemn message of life and of death.
Help us to live as those who are prepared to die.
And when our days here are accomplished,
enable us to die as those who go forth to live,
so that living or dying, our life may be in you,
and that nothing in life or in death will be able to separate us
from your great love in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.

HYMN – UMH #126
Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above
MIT FREUDEN ZART

PROCLAMATION AND RESPONSE

OLD TESTAMENT LESSON – Isaiah 40: 1-8

PSALM
UMH pg. 754 – Psalm 23

NEW TESTAMENT LESSON – Revelation 21: 1-7

UMH #622
There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood
CLEANSING FOUNTAIN

GOSPEL LESSON – John 1: 1-5

SERMON

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH – UMH #881
The Apostles’ Creed

HYMN – UMH #707
Hymn of Promise
PROMISE

COMMENDATION

PRAYER
Receive Jonathan into the arms of your mercy.
Raise Jonathan up with all your people.
Receive us also, and raise us into a new life.
Help us so to love and serve you in this world
that we may enter into your joy in the world to come.

Amen.

THANKSGIVING AND COMMUNION

TAKING THE BREAD AND CUP

THE GREAT THANKSGIVING
The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

(The pastor continues the thanksgiving.)

And so,
with your people on earth
and all the company of heaven
we praise your name and join their unending hymn:

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

(The pastor continues the thanksgiving.)

And so,
in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ,
we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving
as a holy and living sacrifice,
in union with Christ’s offering for us,
as we proclaim the mystery of faith.

Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

(The pastor continues.)

All honor and glory is yours, almighty Father, now and for ever.

Amen.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

BREAKING THE BREAD

GIVING THE BREAD AND CUP

PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

SENDING FORTH

HYMN – UMH #308
Thine Be the Glory
JUDAS MACCABEUS

DISMISSAL WITH BLESSING

Photo:
Flickr, Kodi Tanner, creative commons 2.0
Flickr, J P Davidson, creative commons 2.0

Uncategorized

Previous Post

February 8, 2016

10 Worship Songs We Should Stop Singing

Next Post

February 10, 2016 Worship Isn't Always In a Major Key

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Church of St. YouTube congregational singing congregational song contemporary critiques corporate worship Hymn of the Week hymn singing hymnody and hymnology hymns masturbatory worship Uncategorized worship Worship Quotes

Select a Month February 2023 January 2023 October 2022 September 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 November 2019 September 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who built the ark to survive the flood?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Moses Noah Abraham Elijah