God of the Living

My aunt passed away suddenly just over two weeks ago.  My sisters and I took it upon ourselves to make the arrangements for a Christian funeral for my aunt who was a baptized Methodist.  My old uncle has no children and worse, he has limited mobility since his stroke many years ago and is hardly able to speak.
 

I told the undertaker to make the funeral as simple as possible, not wanting to burden my uncle or any of the relatives.  I asked my pastor, “Can I do away with the memorial wake service?”  He advised, “No, it’s important for your uncle.”    

 

Having funeral wake or a memorial service is necessary for the living, I explained to my sister.  These give the living the opportunity to engage in and to express their grief as fully as they can and to have a proper closure towards the dead. 

 

We may think that one day is sufficient for relatives and friends to come and pay their condolences to the living and their respects to the dead, or that the funeral service on the cremation day will encompass all the essential rites for the dead.  Not so.  The funeral wake, held over several days, helps the immediate bereaved family members to gradually face the shock and reality of death.  I remember my youngest sister lamenting why my late mother’s funeral wake was just three days and not longer.  She found it difficult, then, to accept my mother’s death. 

Why conduct a memorial wake service if we already have a funeral wake over several days?  With relatives and friends in attendance and showing support, I think a memorial service helps the immediate family members to create memories of the final phase of the Christian’s journey on earth.  The memorial service affirms in public the faith of the deceased and the message in the service gives the assurance and comfort to the living that the deceased is in a better place – in heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ.  At my aunt’s memorial service, the pastor talked of this better place as where there will be “no more death, or mourning or crying or pain” (Rev 21:4) and where the street was of gold (Rev 21:21).

 

For the epitaph to be engraved at the columbarium niche, I chose for my aunt the same Bible verse as my mother:

“Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  (Psalm 23:6)

The God whom we believe in is the God of the living. Because Jesus, the Son of God, has risen on the third day after his crucifixion, we who believe in Jesus will rise too from the dead.  We believe this, because the resurrection had already happened for Jesus, because we trust Jesus’ promise that we will share in His resurrection.  

 

“Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”  (Luke 20:34-38)

 

With Easter coming round the corner, we are reminded once again that life exists beyond death.  Happy Easter.