We see the entire life, the entire existence of the one we miss as having been planned by God. 38.) First, we can be reminded that we are created by God as we remember the beginning of our loved one’s life-created in this year in this town to these parents. Telling the Storyįunerals may be outlined using the four movements of the story. Following the thread of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation in funerals leads to a hope solidly grounded on truth. And if the local church is the visible expression of the body of Christ, what better place to have a service where we look death in the face with triumph and defiance and declare that our story does not end-it goes on forever and ever.Ī funeral service based on this story can help us understand that the stories of our lives are inextricably intertwined with the story of redemption. If Christ’s story continues forever, so does ours. Hear again the words of the apostle Paul: “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Rom. As believers, our lives are already part of the Redeemer’s life. We can regain this hope by making our stories part of the story of redemption. ![]() Westerfield Tucker writes that the early church regarded death “as the time for passage from the temptations of mortal existence to the joy and peace of eternal life.” In fact, the day of a person’s death was called the dies natalis-day of birth-and was a cause for anniversary commemorations. In Life Cycles in Jewish and Christian Worship, Karen B. It was the beginning of the new creation. Rather, they celebrated the death, because death, for a Christian, was relief. Funerals in the Early Churchįor the early church, in the first few centuries after Jesus returned to heaven, the funeral was a true time of celebration-not of the person’s life but of what had happened to the person. The apostle Paul tells us, “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest, who have no hope” (1 Thess. Without the story of redemption, we arrive at the funerals of our loved ones-and we arrive at the time of our own death-with an expectation of sorrow rather than a certainty of joy. We can recognize that our loved one was not perfect, because it’s those failures that lead us to grace. Of course, we need not point out our loved one’s specific sins, but we can acknowledge that he or she is a sinner saved by grace, as we all are. And when there’s no real person to grieve, grieving is impossible. So we edit them out, and we’re left with an image of a beautiful human being, too perfect to be real. The memories are too painful, the failures too embarrassing. Flaws and failures, some of which may be well known, are shoved away from view. But when the story of the past is not part of the story of redemption, the memories must be sanitized. It’s good to wish we could go back and relive those memories. ![]() Don’t get me wrong-it’s good to remember. ![]() Without the story of redemption pointing to the future, we must settle for memories of the past. When the story of redemption is missing from a funeral, a hole remains, and we attempt to fill that vacuum with anything we can get our hands on. Without the second story, the first story ends. Often we celebrate a life by telling that person’s story, but we neglect to tell the story of the Person who died that we might live. The effect of this separation between the story of salvation and the saved still lingers, and it’s evident in the content of many funerals today. If we recognize this, we will know this comfort in life and in death.īut the keepers of this story, the church, have not always helped to connect the redeemed with the redemption story, especially with respect to funerals (see sidebar). ![]() Even as we face our own death or grieve the death of a loved one, we know that our story is part of God’s story-God’s grand story of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation-spelled out in his Word. We know in our hearts and in our heads that our own story will not end. You could say we want an eternal story.Īs Christians, this deep-seated longing makes sense. And, like children at bedtime, we never want our stories to end-we want them to go on and on.
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