Since our family arrived in West-Michigan four years ago, I have attended over a dozen funerals and officiated my first funeral as a pastor. Growing up in Mexico, I can only remember attending one funeral. Then in my 15 years in California, the two funerals of my grandparents. Since the communities I lived in Tijuana and California were transient, few older people settled and died there. Before moving to Michigan, I had never heard of the term “visitation” used in the sense of supporting a family whose loved one has died.

As I have learned this new vocabulary, stages of grief, and witnessed many funerals a few reflections have stuck with me:

1. Grief is a Shared Experience

 Death draws us back together. It’s a counter-intuitive and beautiful thing that the same event that tears people from one we loved, also draws people together. Family members that ceased talking with each other, friends that moved far away, and members from a variety of churches, are drawn together by the death of a loved one.

Romans 12:15 calls us, in compassion, to take to ourselves the joys and sorrows of other Christians: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” 1 Corinthians 12:26 tells us that suffering, as a member of the body, will always impact Christ’s people together: “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” In a culture that elevates individual experience, it’s been a privilege to get to participate in a community of those grieving together.

2. Death Defied by Christ’s Resurrection

Each funeral also gives the opportunity to answer the question: “Do I believe in the conclusion of the Nicene Creed: the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come?” Christ’s resurrection and ours are tied together. According to the apostle Paul, Jesus was the first of the Father’s resurrection harvest. “In fact Christ has been raised, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). If Easter Sunday truly happened (which it did!), than it’s only a matter of time before God gathers up his children’s dead and decayed bodies all over the world transforms them into glorified and honored resurrected people (1 Corinthians 15:43).

3. Death Clarifies Only Two Roads

A good funeral service reminds us that there are only two ways to live. As modern people, we like to believe that each person tells their own story. But in death, the reality becomes clear that there are only two paths. Christ will one day “separate people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 15:32). Funerals give us opportunities to call people away from eternal death, and into the free gift of life.

4. Hope in the face of Death

In the funerals I’ve attended these last four years, there is an honest acknowledgement of deep sadness and loss, mingled with rich and abiding hope in Christ. I can’t think of a better way to remind ourselves that God made us eternal beings, with body and soul, looking forward to life forever with Him, purchased by a crucified Savior, than to attend a funeral and sing together:

“No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me.
From life’s first cry, to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.

 No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from his hand.
Till he returns, or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I stand.”

Books I’m reading:

“Accompany them with Singing” by Thomas Long  While Long denies an important doctrine of the intermediate state, which weakens this book, he does have very helpful reflections on why the Christian funeral service has changed so significantly and ways to recover it.

“Remember Death: The Surprising Path to Living Hope” by Matthew McCullough. McCullough explains why death has become “taboo” in our modern culture, and the benefits of “numbering our days.