Since I took my new job at the church a couple of weeks ago, I've been involved with running sound or media for three funerals, and as of today, yet another one is being scheduled. I don't recall a time in the life of our church when there were so many of them in such a short span of time, but in a way, it has been good preparation for me, because my own mother went home to the Lord yesterday morning. She had been suffering from Alzheimer's for several years, and spent the last year and a half in a dedicated Alzheimer's care facility, so her death was not unexpected--I and my family see it as a merciful blessing from God. Her suffering is done, and I suspect that to her, it seems that her life has just begun. (She wouldn't want to trade places now with any of us!)

A funeral or memorial service, according to Scripture, is a good place to be. Ecclesiastes 7:2 says,

It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of every man;
the living should take this to heart.

I never attend a funeral without thinking of this passage--it reminds me that there are often many who attend the funeral of a loved one or friend who don't know God, and who haven't given much thought to questions of eternity and life after death. A funeral often brings these issues to the front of one's mind, and it can be an opportunity to provide attenders with a chance to connect with God when their hearts are tender and open.

The non-Christian might be puzzled at the notion of worship during a funeral--why on earth would someone rejoice and praise God when something so awful has happened to someone they love? But as Paul says to the Thessalonian church,

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. (1 Thessalonians 4:13)

This is often one of the greatest distinctions between those who love God and worship him and those who don't--we believe there is hope, even in the face of the very thing that many non-Christians fear the most. When we worship God in that context, we demonstrate that hope and peace in a powerful way. Our worship at the time of remembrance of a loved one shows our confidence in a God who understands what it is to lose a loved one, even as he gave his own Son over to death, and our true hope that death is not the end of the story.

As we prepare to lay my mother's body to rest, it is my prayer that someone in that sanctuary will wonder why we are rejoicing and giving thanks to God, and that perhaps that wondering will spark a desire in them to know the God who gives us real hope, even when all seems lost.