Posted on 03/12/2015 6:03:00 AM PDT by Gamecock
Full Title: My Funeral is Back On. For reason of sin, I wanted no funeral. I didn’t want people standing up to testify to what a great guy I was
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I am painfully aware of the inclinations of my heart. I know how the word of God I preach has beamed a spotlight into my soul, exposing my sin, making me wonder, who am I to be calling others to account? Paul writes my biography in Romans 7. I find great solace in his summation: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:24–25)
For reason of sin, I wanted no funeral. I didn’t want people standing up to testify to what a great guy Stan was. “He served Christ so faithfully, for so many years.” “What an example of a godly man!” If only they knew. If they saw the laziness and self-centeredness and waywardness and mixed motives and mean-spirited thoughts, their accolades would be silenced.
I didn’t want hagiography. I didn’t want people testifying to a man they thought they knew, extolling virtues that would be dwarfed by vices. Not having a funeral would avoid a sideshow.
But I have changed my mind—for two reasons. One, a friend died. The family decided not to have a funeral, nothing to acknowledge him or his death. At first I took it in stride, but then it occurred to me that something was not right with that. In not acknowledging his death, they did not acknowledge his life. It was like the life that God had given him, with its achievements and relationships and journey, never happened. But it did, and it should have been celebrated to recognize the life God had given him from his mother’s womb and the days He had ordained for him. Grief would have been creased with a smile. Emptiness filled with substance.
A funeral celebrates the life of an image-bearer of God. It declares death to be an enemy, evil that splits apart families and cuts deep in hearts. I would be short-changing the gift of life and living that God gave me were I not to have a funeral.
The other reason I changed my mind about a funeral has to do with the gospel that bears on my calling as a pastor. My righteousness is not in my apparent clean living. My hope is not in my efforts. The gospel points me to Christ, and that is exactly where I would want my funeral to point others.
A pastor is not a super-saint, less in need of Christ than the person in the pew or the customer in the house of the rising sun. An understanding of the gospel will bring others to repent not only of their sin but of their righteousness, that Jesus Christ might be preeminent. In confronting the ugliness of death, people need to see God’s answer. Death is natural in evolutionary thought, but in the Bible’s view it is unnatural, unwelcome and unsavory. It is an intruder, a usurper, and God has provided victory in Christ—resurrection victory, victory over sin, death and the grave.
A funeral brings that perspective to bear. It says, “In your face, death. For the one in Christ, nothing can separate from the love of God in Christ Jesus—not even you.”
People need to pause on the treadmill of life and take stock of their portfolio of hope. Is it a “hope so” hope or a “know so” hope that is a confident expectation, an assured conviction, a vibrant certainty that rests only and fully on the accomplished work of Jesus Christ? Funerals provide that pause button. Funerals press that question.
So, my funeral is back on. I still don’t want anything fancy (i.e., expensive). But I do want people to celebrate the life God gave me and to hear about the eternal life He gave me in Jesus, and that this escape from the enemy of death can be theirs as well by faith in Him.
Two reasons: One, a friend died. The family decided not to have a funeral, nothing to acknowledge him or his death. At first I took it in stride, but then it occurred to me that something was not right with that. In not acknowledging his death, they did not acknowledge his life….The other reason I changed my mind about a funeral has to do with the gospel that bears on my calling as a pastor. My righteousness is not in my apparent clean living. My hope is not in my efforts. The gospel points me to Christ, and that is exactly where I would want my funeral to point others.
Prayer
Scripture reading: Romans 8:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith,5 as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Hymn: It is Well With My Soul
Sermon: 1 Corinthians 15, 1-11 Now I would remind you, brothers,1 of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day pin accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
Assurance of Pardon: Romans 8:1: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Hymn: Amazing Grace.
Communion
Hymn: Isaiah 43
Prayer
Bagpipe: Amazing Grace
At the Grave: Military roll call. When I don’t answer, Taps
I've always been fond of the Navy's "still on patrol" designation, used when a ship was lost at sea during a time of war.
when my Dad, an old navy guy and avid bass fisherman, passed, we concluded his obituary with ‘has gone fishing’.
a nod to Christ and how we’ll see him again
Petra, song is GRAVE ROBBER
Romans 8:1: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
When you attend a funeral
It is sad to think that sooner or
Later those you love will do the same for you
And you may have thought it tragic
(Not to mention other adjec-
-tives) to think of all the weeping they will do
But don’t you worry
No more ashes, no more sackcloth
And an arm band made of black cloth
Will some day nevermore adorn a sleeve
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too
There’ll be nobody left behind to grieve
There was a theory that mourning at a funeral is actually mourning for oneself as at some point you will be in the same situation as the deceased and it reminds you of your own mortality.
I suspect that is a healthy way of looking at it all.
Stan,
Try reading Romans Chapter 8, it is the antidote for Romans Chapter 7.
Stan Laurel
What Gamecock said - no condemnation.
I talked to a friend last weekend about messing up...feeling condemnation...knowing I shouldn’t...which brings more condemnation. I told this friend that the only thing Jesus never went thru was having to come back to God after failing Him.
After pondering this for a while, I have come to the conclusion that ‘no condemnation’ means, in God’s eyes, condemnation is kinda like santa claus. Not that god was saying ‘you shouldn’t feel condemnation’, but that there is no such thing as condemnation in god towards those that are his children.
Sounds like you are still suffering the consequences of previous actions, but in gods eye, you are not condemned.
My funeral:...
Sounds good to me.
I've done a fair bit of contemplation of this over the years, and of late.
Don't go on about me, because most people aren't going to have a clue about 80% of what I'm about, anyway.
Get death right, and get the resurrection right. And whatever is said, don't make any assertion there is no biblical warrant for.
I heard a sermon on Sermon audio on grieving.. it was so good
He talked about the trend not to mourn the loss, but cerebrate the life of someone..
He pointed out that mourning is a spiritual event that e see through out scripture..we see it through the OT and even Jesus wept at the death of a friend
I had never planned to have a funeral ...but I will now
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