A Christian Funeral is missional.
Funerals are a part of the the church’s existence, a time of thanksgiving, of consolation, a time when the people of God draw together, and a time when the people of God draw comfort from the closeness and promises of God.
Funerals also experience sorrow drawing down hope, which in turn further equips and focuses us as God’s people as we return to a world replete with its own sorrows, a world lacking in hope.
A Christian Funeral is not an escape from the reality of the world, it is a place where God’s people most acutely engage with the only solution to all the sorrows that surround us.
And then we go forward to take that good news out to the world.
From Thomas G. Long’s Accompany Them With Singing – The Christian Funeral.
The funeral is not a stopping place for God’s people, but a way station on the journey of faith. We take a loved one to the place of departure and say farewell, and then we go back and get to work serving God’s world. A Good funeral prays, then, not just for ourselves in our loss, but also for the world in its sorrows and needs.
Thomas G. Long, Accompany Them With Singing – The Christian Funeral, Westminster John Knox Press, 2013 paperback edition, originally published 2009, pg. 139.
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