I attended a funeral service on the 5th day of Chinese New Year. I didn't know the deceased; I came to comfort the sister, my ex-boss. I remembered how she had comforted me by sleeping over that first nite my husband lay dead in a coffin downstairs. It wasn't like we were buddy-buddy; in fact I had refused her offer, but she insisted. And I am ever grateful she did; for in the middle of the nite, I started crying for a husband who would never sleep beside me again on this side of earth. All she did was hold me. Well, she certainly doesn't need me to sleep over with her in her hour of grief losing a beloved brother; she has husband, kids, and family to draw her close. So all I could do was hug her for some brief moments of time. No words can comfort in the face of death; none are really necessary. Tears speak a common language.
The first Christian funeral I attended was 15 years ago - my husband's. I remember the Chinese funerals of relatives before that. One which still stands out very clearly in my mind was the funeral of my grandfather umpteen years ago when I was just a kid. I barely knew this grandpa, since my family lived in Penang, and they were in Alor Star. But I vividly recall how I was directed to crawl some distance on my knees to the altar in front of the coffin, then kneel with joss-sticks in hand, and after that, sit and burn papers in a clay pot. I remember the chanting and wailing and me crawling up to the roof attic of some aunty's house to snooze. And I remember how we were all forbidden to come out on the 7th nite to avoid meeting the spirit of my dead grandpa who would return to visit before being forever shut up in hell. Or something spooky to that effect.
I have since attended many Christian and other funerals. Each time I never fail to remember my own walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Sure, life goes on, we come to terms with the loss of loved ones. But the grief is something that never quite goes away; time simply files it off in some remote corner of the mind, until another funeral brings it up to the forefront again. I don't remember much of my husband's wake service though. All I knew was there were literally tons of strangers milling around the house. Many were church folks who had come, not because they knew me or my husband, but because they knew my brother, the church pastor. I don't remember what was said by the preacher though years later, my sis-in-law told me she wasn't too happy hearing him talk about man's sin leading to death. "What he mean? My brother didn't do any sin that he should die for." Of course by that time, I had been a Christian for some years, so I understood what the preacher really meant, and he was right of course. That all of us are sinners by nature and death is the consequence of all sin. No Pastor coined that up; God said it.
And that is the inescapable tragedy of our humanity. We are all doomed to die, and not just die as in get eaten up by worms under the ground or be reduced to bones and ashes in a crematorium. There is death physical and there is death eternal in hell. It's irrelevant whether we believe it or not. Just like God, if it's true, it's true. Believing or not believing makes absolutely no difference to the truth; but belief/unbelief has to bear the consequences, which makes a world of difference. No matter how great, how good, how successful, how happy and free we think we are living our lives on this earth doing what we want. No matter how many houses we own in our name, no matter how much money we make, no matter how many million 'likes' we hit on Facebook, no matter how fast we are promoted to the top of the ladder. No matter. Death ends it all.
But it doesn't have to be that way, and that's why the Christian funeral is different. I have grown so familiar with the songs sung on such occasions I sing them without referring to the hymn book. And more than anything else, when the old feeling of loss surfaces once again, it's the songs that soothe my heart, expressing the hope that we who believe can trust in a God who has rescued us from death; that our faith will never be in vain as the promise will turn into reality the very second we breathe our last; it's a fact merely to come, a done deal, fait accompli as they say.
No religion gives that kind of certainty. No ritual or ceremony can guarantee me I will be reunited in heaven, not only with my God or my husband or with every one I know who has believed in Jesus, but also with all I don't know who called upon His name. Man, I have got a whole 'world' family waiting for me to party 'upstairs'. All my good deeds aren't enough to pay for the entrance ticket to the grandest banquet in that city. I only got it when I chose to stretch out my empty hands to Jesus to receive what only He can give. That's why my funeral will be a celebration of not only my life on earth but my life in eternity. Literally I can say to hell with death; I don't belong there. It gives me great satisfaction to know I can say that with full confidence, not because I have any power over death - I don't; it's not me who cancelled death's contract on my life; it's Jesus and only Jesus who can do it for me. The best news is He already did, when He died on the cross, wiping out all my sin by His very own blood, and rose resurrected alive from the tomb of death.
I can come up with many reasons why I believe Jesus Christ. But the most compelling still remains this - that only in Him, have I a hope that there is so much more than life on this earth that gives me so much more meaning to everyday that I get to live on this earth. Right now it's as if I am living with one foot in heaven's door, anticipating what's coming, and one foot grounded on earth. Paradoxically I am looking forward to dying, because I know when that happens, both my feet will stand firm on heaven's hallowed ground, not in hell's fire. So whilst grief can and does cut deep, the Christian heart rests on this divine assurance that death isn't the end, it's the beginning when we are welcomed home to a much better place.
"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 of mankind, who have no hope" - 1 Thessalonians 4:13
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