Christian Death Revisited

I pretty much said it all in the four posts on death I wrote back during Lent, but on Saturday I was on the receiving end of the blessing that comes in understanding death through Christian, hope-filled eyes.

I attended the memorial service of my friend Jack. Remember that he was a seminary classmate of mine, so unlike with the previous two funerals I attended, this one was in my own tradition, my own flavor. Presbyterian. Decent and in order. It was wonderful. And awful. And wonderful.

First. No remnants of a lifeless earthly body in sight. It is so much easier to envision a glorified body when you’re not staring at a corpse, a box holding a corpse, or a pretty jar of dusty remains.

Second. It was a service of worship. It had all the elements of a Sunday morning worship service, in the usual order. So, for me, that was comforting. In fact it was more than comforting. After few to no worship services without children in tow over the last 7 years, it was glorious simply to be in a worship service by myself!

The thing with this funeral is I needed it. I walked into that room with so many hang-ups, so much grief. I walked in angry that such a man, such a pastor, would go through all it took to complete seminary and be ordained, beginning at the age of 53, and have such a short pastorate. Yes. I said angry. I admit it. I was angry over this thing. This mess. Maybe that’s another post in and of itself: Being Angry with God. Suffice it to say, Saturday morning? I was angry.

I was also guilty. Oodles and oodles and piles and piles of guilt, weighing heavily on my shoulders. I did not reach out to Jack when he was sick. When he needed me. And I think I just unwittingly got to the heart of my problem. I didn’t think he needed me. I looked at myself and didn’t see a whole lot need-worthy: I figured he had all those other people in the presbytery who would reach out to him and care for him. He didn’t need me. I didn’t mean as much to him in seminary as he had meant to me . . . Again. Maybe another post for another day: the things I learned about myself in the wake of my friend’s death. Suffice it to say, Saturday morning? I was guilty. I was guilty for having fallen far, far short of the kind of friend Jack deserved, of the kind of conduct becoming of a future pastor. Conduct becoming of any Christian really.

And I was sad. Just plain sad. I was sad that I wouldn’t see my friend again. I was sad that I had missed out on seeing him recently, so caught up in the day-to-day mommyhood am I. And I was sad for his wife, who is truly so sweet, who now has to figure out a whole new life without her partner and companion of 25 years. I was sad for all of his family and I was sad for the churches he had served. Sad sad sad. We were all going to miss him so much.

So, I walked into that sanctuary a bona fide mess. And what did I encounter there, in that space and time? Good news. Good, good news. In the face of such a tragic story, in the face of raging anger, burdensome guilt, and palpable sadness, I heard Good news. Death is not the end, Jesus Christ is the victor over death and through his faith we have assurance of everlasting life. We have assurance that Jack, while no longer with us, is very much alive. Alive in the Savior who died for him, who rose for him. And we have assurance that this same Savior died for us, rose for us, and prays for us. That as one who is in Christ, I am a new creation right here, right now. My old life, of anger and guilt and sadness, is gone and a new life has begun. Right here. Right now.

In that hour, I was invited to die with Christ once again, to be raised with him once again. Raised to new life. While I shook and sobbed and grieved and owned my every sorrow–not sugar coating it, not glossing over it, not shaming myself for not relying more fully on God’s grace–at the same time my very spirit was renewed. Internally I lay prostrate at the foot of the cross, and then I was raised up. I felt it. I lived it.

I left that funeral still sad over our loss, but sad tempered with joy that my loss was Jack’s gain. Having sobbed my sadness, I was released from the pit, left with some residual dust to wear and own until I’m ready to brush it off completely.

I left that funeral still feeling somewhat guilty, but guilty with a purpose: guilt used not to beat myself over the head repeatedly, but to motivate me to change, to not make this same mistake again. To just suck it up already–the social phobia, the self-loathing–and do the work that God has called me to do: mourn with those who mourn, weep with those who weep. Reach out to those who suffer, never again just turn my back and assume someone else is doing it. I was reminded that the same spirit who raised Jesus Christ from the dead dwells in me, gives life to my mortal body, can and will empower me, change me, move me to do his will.

And I left that funeral with my anger dissipated. Sitting in that place I was reminded of God’s sovereignty and love. Sovereignty and love. Because those two must always go hand in hand. To understand God’s sovereignty apart from his love is so frightening as we envision an arbitrary despot. But to understand his love apart from his sovereignty is so disheartening, so discouraging as it robs us of strength and power. No, there in that place, at Jack’s memorial service, I was reminded both of God’s sovereignty and of his love. And for that reason, I was able to release some of my anger, and regain some of my trust in the fact that God knows what he’s doing. Notice I said some. I am still a work in progress.

I left that funeral a totally different person than when I went in. I was transformed. I give all glory to the One who met me there that day: the Living Lord who conquered death that I might have life: abundant and eternal. A more fitting closing hymn there could not have been:

There’s a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place, And I know that it’s the Spirit of the Lord.

There are sweet expressions on each face, And I know they feel the presence of the Lord.

Sweet Holy Spirit, sweet heavenly Dove, stay right here with us, filling us with your love.

And for these blessings we lift our hearts in praise.

Without a doubt we’ll know that we have been revived when we shall leave this place.

Truly it is only in the context of a Christian memorial service where these can be the final words sung. Words chosen by a wife and daughter who deeply adored the one who has died and believed that the service just wouldn’t be right without that song.

I rejoiced in the words, I rejoiced in the revival of my own spirit, and I rejoiced for my friend Jack who has indeed been revived now that he’s left this place. And I look forward to seeing him again.

Thinking about death . . . (part 4) Christian Hope.

I’m realizing I want this to be bigger than I can make it. Trying to trim down and remember my context. Frustrated theologians are so . . . well . . . frustrating!

Christian Hope. That was the difference between the two funerals I attended.

In one we were encouraged to claim the promises of a savior who can be trusted to keep his promises. In the other we were invited to hope for the best, and if we all do the right thing, we will, maybe, see Adella again.

In one, we looked forward as a done deal to spending time with Sherrie as she ran and sang and rejoiced in the Lord. In the other, we were to be “comforted” by the vision of Adella at rest. At peace. Like this eternal sleep and quiet and solitude. I found no comfort in hearing over and over again about my vivacious, gregarious, life-embracing aunt being left in “peace” and “rest”. I found greater comfort in the words of her sister who envisions Adella waiting for her two older sisters at the softball field, ready to play a good game when they all finally arrive.

I guess that rest and peace thing is secondary to the hope component, but I think they fit together as hope set the tone for Sherrie’s funeral, and I think the lack thereof set the tone for Adella’s.

Some thoughts on Christian hope. . . .

Romans 5:1-5 ¹Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. ³And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; ⁴and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; ⁵and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Romans 8:14-25 ¹⁴For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. ¹⁵For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, Abba! Father!” ¹⁶The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. ¹⁸For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ¹⁹For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²²For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. ²³And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. ²⁴For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

Christian hope is not Disney hope. It is not, “When you wish upon a star . . .” It’s not meteorologic hope: “It looks like the clouds are going the other way, we can hope it won’t rain on Saturday.” It’s not parental hope: “I sure hope Ruth starts sleeping through every night very soon.”

No. It is sure. It is certain. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion (3.2.7), Calvin defines faith as “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” Christian hope is that firm and certain knowledge extended into the future, applied to the things we have not seen. Just as sure, just as certain, just not yet happened. As we Christians. we are caught between an already and a not yet: already Christ has come, Christ has died, Christ is risen, and not yet, but some day, he will come again. As we sit in this liminal state between already and not yet, we have faith in the already and hope in the yet to come. We have a certain knowledge of God’s past and present benevolence toward us, and we are eagerly awaiting the full consummation of all that God has promised us.

That is Christian hope.

And that is, sadly, not what I heard at Aunt Adella’s funeral, and yet so much what I wanted my uncle and cousins to hear. Christian hope, true Christian hope, is something worth committing your whole life to, worth leaning into, worth everything. Some priest’s paltry wishful thinking about maayyybe getting to see Aunt Adella some day? Not even close. Prayers offered up to sanits, asking for them to “help” Aunt Adella find her way to heaven? Pitiful. Images of an eternally resting woman lying in a grave? So very disheartening. In the midst of this family full of people in desperate need of the Gospel, both in the face of death and in their day-to-day lives, I wept for the lost opportunity. For the failure of this particular church to have any real and lasting words of true Christian hope for a gathering so raw and so open to hearing God’s Great News. Instead, despite his claim to the contrary, the priest offered hope for this life only and it truly was pitiful (1Cor 15:19).

Such a stark contrast to the funeral from the day before. Sherrie’s funeral abounded in Christian hope. We were all invited to hope–actively, fully, confidently–in Sherrie’s glorification, in her new body, in her new life, in and through and with her Lord. This, my friends, is Good News. And in this hope, Sherrie’s brother was able to look more fully at her life in this world and recognize the blessing in it, see God’s hand all over it, testify to the witness to the Good News Sherrie’s own limited life was. Together we stood with a firm and certain knowledge that Sherrie’s life spent in so broken a body with so damaged a brain was not the end of the story, embracing our sure and certain hope that we would see her again in the form God, in his infinite love and grace, created all of creation to be.

So. This whole thing took me forever to finish. It haunted me, it stirred around and around in my mind as the weeks dragged on. But you know what? The project lasted all through Lent. How ironic. Or appropriate, really. My first days of Lent were spent learning of these deaths and preparing for and attending these funerals. As I finish my reflections, I’m just days from celebrating with gusto the day that defines us as Christians. I am within sight of Easter morning. I celebrate in faith, with joy, the resurrection of our Lord. And through him, in hope, I eagerly await his return when all will be made new, all will be as it should be, when we who have received a spirit of adoption and are children of God, joint heirs with Christ, are glorified with him. I eagerly await that day. Come, Lord Jesus!

Thinking about death . . . (part 3)

The second funeral.

There I was, drained from yesterday’s funeral for Sherrie and last evening’s viewing for Aunt Adella: bright and early Saturday morning, walking into the church where my parents were married–where my father and his siblings, including Aunt Adella, had been baptized–hoping, praying that the morning’s mass would offer some comfort to my grief-ravaged family.  I was accompanied by my mother’s brother who had been raised . . . well most likely without church at all by a mother who felt abandoned by God and turned from him–not to mention his abusive father.  Uncle John is not very attracted to church, or God, or religion of any sort.  He’s among my prayer concerns.  So this Saturday among my prayers is that Uncle John might hear something that God would use to arouse faith in him.

I could not have been more let down.

First the ritual of the mass and the liturgy surrounding it that just hits me all wrong.  But I’m a convert, so you probably could have guessed that.  Aunt Adella’s closed coffin sat in the middle of the aisle, covered in parements, upon which the priest laid miscellaneous doo-dads throughout the service.  Ok, doo-dads sounds irreverent.  Let me try again.  At various points the priest laid things on top of the coffin, including a simple wooden cross (not crucifix), a book from which he read the Gospel lesson.  (It looked too thin to be a complete Bible, but I suppose it’s possible it was.)  I believe it was after having spoken of Aunt Adella’s baptism that he sprinkled it with “holy water,” but that may be wishful remembering and it could have been in no way related to talk of baptism.  At the end of the service the priest swung smoking incense around and over the casket.  All that was pretty ookey, for me.  But, frankly, not as ookey as Sherrie’s open casket during the funeral the day before.  So, the casket and the ritual around it didn’t set me off too far right away.

But fear not, much ookeyness (ookiness?  not really sure and for some reason my spell-check can’t seem to tell me) was to follow.  In fact, oodles of ookeyness abounded throughout the day.  Among the ookiest?  Prayers that included pleas that the “saints would take Adella and present her to the Father.”  Ok, so apparently the saints present the dead before the Father.  I must have missed that page.  Also, “May our prayers aid Adella in getting into heaven.”  Yowza.  No Amen from me on that one.  In fact I spent the whole day listening to prayers and carefully choosing to which ones I would voice my assent, lest I commit some egregious sin, say idolatry or straight-out blasphemy.  Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise, and maybe it’s just in my mainline circles where anyone tries, the Roman Church that Luther and Calvin and all the rest fought so hard against is still alive and well in many, many ways.

But really, these ookey things were not the worst of it all for me.  Really.  Afterall, I’ve already undergone my Reformation, I’ve studied enough and learned enough to know there’s a reason the Roman Church is no longer the church of the West.  No, the worst part of the day is where the rubber of the Roman Catholic theology met the road of my grieving family.  And squashed them flat.  Rather, took their flattened bodies and miserably failed to serve God in breathing life into them.  It just left them there.  Flattened and hopeless.

The tragedy, for me, began after the usual liturgy stuff–the psalter, the epistle, the Gospel reading.  It came during the priest’s homily.  It was at this point that things began to truly sadden me, even anger me.  The man had absolutely no presence.  This was the case throughout the entirety of the ritualized parts of the liturgy, but remained during the homily, the one part of the service that was context-specific.  The rest of the liturgy could have taken place on any given Sunday, as is the Catholic liturgical way.  So, with the homily I’m thinking, here’s your chance, priest:  talk to this family, bring them the Gospel, bring them the assurances of faith they so desperately need.  What do we get?  Hmmm . . . seeing that it’s been several weeks now, I might just lay out some highlights as they come to mind:

Um.  First, priest shares how on his recent vacation he began to read To Kill a Mockingbird–never having read it before as no one had ever made him do so.  Returning from his vacation with the book only partially completed, he shared with a young altar server (aka, altar boy), what he was reading and the lad was kind enough to give away the end of the story.  Ok.  So far I’m scratching my head and saying “Why?!  Why oh why are you sharing this little tale?  Why at a funeral?!”

Ohhh.  He brings on home this illustration:  my grandparents, when baptizing Aunt Adella, did so knowing how her story would end:  she would die.  Because everyone dies.  “I didn’t think my mom would ever die, such a saint she was, but of course the day came when she did indeed die.”  “I too will die someday, though hopefully at not so young an age as 56 (the age at which Aunt Adella died).”  Seriously?  They pay you to say this stuff?

—–Ya know what?  I’m being hyper-critical of this priest’s pastoral capabilities.  This goes beyond the theology of the day.  But you know what else?  I’m a trained pastor and a pastor’s wife with 10 1/2 years experience.  I know of what I speak.  And I speak of . . . er . . . bad, bad pastoral care.  Anyway . . . just wanted to put that little reminder in there.  That I’m trained in the art and ministry of funeral preaching.  I’m no amateur looking at this.—–

Ok, so on we go with the priest’s main points. . . .  So, Adella was baptized, great.  And she–like everyone must–has died.  And now she’s at peace and at rest.  So that’s the end of the story.  But in between the baptism and the end of the story, she has clearly lived a story, a life, that has touched the lives of others–there are 100 people here today who have been touched by Adella.  I myself hope I can go to heaven and meet her some day.

Huh?  “I hope I can go to heaven?”  Is that what he just said?  I’m not even giving an accurate quote there.  Because the way I wrote it, it looks like it can mean he hopes he can get to meet my Aunt Adella when he gets to heaven, like there are going to be so many people he couldn’t possibly meet everyone.  But that’s not really what he said–and my sister, who was sitting on the other side of the church, concurred with my assessment.  What he said and meant was that he hoped he would make it to heaven.  Hoped.  Hoped, as in “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow because we’re supposed to have that picnic.”  That’s how this priest, this man who has committed his entire life to the service of the Gospel–such is the claim of his vocation, anyway–this priest hopes he gets to heaven.  OK then.

To be fair, prior to this he had said if Aunt Adella’s death, if anyone’s death, is the end of the story, then we are a people most to be pitted.  To that I said, AMEN!  Preach Paul!  Finally!  But that was before the wishy washy words of wishful thinking with regard to our heavenly destination.

This is not Christian hope.

Thinking about death . . . (part 2)

In case you’ve forgotten all about it, here’s part 1.  I haven’t stopped thinking my thoughts, I’ve just had limited time to devote to writing them. And then I did get to writing them but ended up way off track. I’ve struggled to find the best way to describe my experiences and writing my thoughts. I’m going to start fresh and think simple. I’ve finally decided perhaps the best way to go about it is to describe things as I experienced them.

So, I’ll start with Sherrie’s funeral.

From the time I accidentally happened upon her obituary until I sat in the church for Sherrie’s funeral, I wondered how her family would view her death, eternally speaking. If you’ve been hanging out with me for any time at all (IRL or virtually), you have likely picked up on the fact that, for me, everything is theological. So, on my way to the funeral I started trying to figure out what would be the Assemblies of God take on the life and death of a girl whose brain never made it past infancy.

I started with what I knew about AG theology, admittedly a rather limited knowledge. I knew they were into “decisions” and altar calls. I also know that my AG great aunt is no longer convinced of her salvation as life following her husband’s death has brought her down paths she hadn’t anticipated: sharing a home with a man, visiting Atlantic City, drinking the occasional glass of wine, dancing at weddings (her companion is a good ol’ Irish Catholic). Despite the fact that my aunt is a born-again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, she fears her life is not worthy of heaven. This fact both saddens and mystifies me.

So, if the AG soteriology–based solely on my observations of it, not any real research–requires a decision to be born-again, does not include a ‘once saved, always saved’ clause, and may or may not require a separate baptism in the Spirit (something of which I have only vague and passing knowledge), what of this 32 year-old woman whose brain function makes impossible such conversion?  To be honest, I was a little worried on my way to the church.

I couldn’t have had less reason to worry.

The funeral was officiated by Sherrie’s brother-in-law.  (My best friend from high school also married a pastor.  Go figure.)  That service was full of nothing but Good News.  Visions of Sherrie finally whole, fully developed cognitively, her body and her brain restored.  Images of Sherrie finally capable of joining in singing the songs of her beloved grandmother.  Joy-filled visions of Sherrie being greeted by her savior, her calling on his name with a voice that had been incomprehensible in life.  Those gathered spent an hour filled with the assurance that Sherrie was now fully who God had created her to be, who she would have been had it not been for the ravages of illness in this fallen world.

Now.  Don’t misunderstand.  It was not all happiness and glee.  I’ve not experienced it myself, but this blog post and further discussions about it amongst my message board friends brought to my attention that some within the evangelical community simply have no answer in the face of tragedy and grief.  They avoid it, they spiritualize it away.  That’s a reflection and post for a different day, but I didn’t want to take the chance for misunderstanding.  I wanted to take at least a paragraph to clarify that this was indeed a funeral, where there was mourning and weeping, sadness, even frustration.  People had opportunity to grieve not only the recent loss of Sherrie to death, but also the 30-plus-year loss of Sherrie to illness and brain damage.  It was all a lovely, healthy balance between grief over what had been lost and hope over what is now and is to come.

Hope.  That word represents the key to the difference between the two funerals I attended in as many days.  Hope.  Hope understood in such completely different ways.  One that brought immense comfort, one . . . well, one that did not.  One that fell far, far short.

Thinking about death . . . (part 1)

This past Friday found me at two different funerals, with a viewing in between. These exhausting and draining days left me thinking about death a lot, thinking not only about death, but death in a Christian context, that is, Christians dealing with death. I found a remarkable contrast between the two funerals and my theological criticism wheels have been spinning wildly ever since.

Let me start by saying that there is a much bigger, more important, profound element in these two events beyond my own theological musings. I in no way want to take away from the pain and grief surrounding two families. Also, as a person who knew both of these women, I too have been dealing with my own sense of grief. That all being said, however, I think my theological reflections on the days’ events are worth documenting, worth mulling over. Some background information will be helpful.

The first funeral was for the sister of my best friend growing up and through college. This sister, Sherrie, was stricken by illness as a baby (I know neither the illness or her exact age at the time) that left her brain severely damaged. She remained infantile in her development for the remainder of her 32 years, spending those years being lovingly cared for in a residential facility. As I hugged Sherrie’s mom at the funeral, extending my sympathies, her words were “It was a long time coming.” This poor mom. Her heart was shattered twice: when her beautiful baby was broken by illness, never to recover, never to develop, and when her beloved daughter died.

The second funeral was for my aunt. Like Sherrie, my aunt’s life was cut short. Unlike Sherrie, my aunt lived a full life until cancer caused her death at the still young age of 56. Aunt Adella struggled with lung cancer for 3 1/2 years. Diagnosed in Stage IV, she was not expected to live six months. Aunt Adella determined to live, and strove with every fiber of her being to do just that right up until she lost consciousness for the final time a day before she died. So determined was she to live, that despite her years of deterioration and months of agony, her death hit her husband as if she had died in a car accident: completely unexpectedly, utterly out of nowhere. No prior arrangements–power of attorney, funeral plans, cemetery plot, etc.–had been made. Upon her death, my uncle was dumbstruck and completely unprepared for what to do next. My heart aches and breaks for him.

The contrast between the two funerals was stark. The most obvious difference was denominational: Sherrie’s was in an Assemblies of God church, my aunt’s Roman Catholic. My experience of the two disparate settings in such proximity, in time as well as space, laid bare both traditions’ theological undergirdings in a way that revealed not only differences but superiority of construction in one and faulty joints, crooked pilings, and profound danger in the other. It’s the danger that leads me to name the denominations. Normally when talking about theological differences among denominations I work hard to be diplomatic, to speak in general terms, to emphasize the positives about my own tradition rather than bash the other tradition. I say I work hard, I try hard, I admit I don’t always succeed.

My natural non-confrontational (at least in this setting) inclination is to leave the denominations in question anonymous, simply to reflect on differences in traditions. However, in this case I feel compelled to name them. Really I feel compelled to name the Roman Catholic context; I think the AG perspective is not unique to AG and can be applied more universally. Today I feel compelled to name the Roman Catholic context because I found it harmful. Not “potentially” harmful, not failing to be helpful, but downright harmful.

With that as background, I will move forward in my theological reflection on the two funerals next time . . .

And with that introduction, I’m sure you’re so excited you can hardly wait!  Sounds like a thoroughly uplifting series.