The first thing the Apostle does is assume that the believer’s reaction to death will be one of grief, not celebration. In effect, he gives us permission to be sorrowful in bereavement. The second thing is that he limits the scope of our grief. Unlike unbelievers for whom death represents ultimate loss, believers have hope.

I’ve been to three funerals over the last few years. Two of them really bothered me, though probably not for the reasons you might expect, Gentle Reader.

The one was for an unbeliever. I can appreciate the pressure the officiating minister felt. People expect gracious words at a funeral and it is difficult to conjure them up when the deceased’s spiritual situation is in doubt. Still, the minister didn’t even try. In a rambling 40 minute sermon he only mentioned Jesus once, never spoke of the Resurrection, and rather lamely referred to a “faint glimmer of hope.”

The other was for a believer yet it failed at the other end of the spectrum. While there were many commendable things to remember the deceased for, a life of godliness and good works, yet the funeral was eerily similar to the first one: few references to Jesus and no mention of the Resurrection. The service was celebratory right down to banging drums and blaring music and people practically dancing.

Both services were unseemly. In the case of the unbeliever, the minister spectacularly squandered an opportunity to preach the gospel. He could have held out to the congregation the hope that is found in Christ alone, but didn’t. That service was bad but in some ways the second was worse. Why?

First, the funeral as celebration ignores the normal feelings that attend death. Such an approach seems to me to be a natural outgrowth of the prosperity gospel that is so prevalent in our nation. We are conditioned to believe that God is only concerned with our health and happiness. Christians ought never to be sorrowful. To be happy is to be spiritual.

But this attitude towards death ignores how the Bible treats it. The Bible teaches that death is the Last Enemy. It is an unnatural abomination, something that was not part of the original created order. Its presence is a constant reminder that we are sinners living in a fallen world. When the Bible speaks of the believer and death it uses the language of grief and consolation, not celebration.

Second, the funeral as celebration ignores the eschatological aspect of death. A biblical view of death is forward looking, not backward looking. As we consider the seeming triumph of death when we view the casket, the fact that Christ is the Resurrection and the Life and that all who believe in him will live, consoles us and gives us hope. Staying focused on the life of the deceased takes the focus off of Christ.

The Apostle Paul tells us how we should treat death in 1 Thessalonians 4:13:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

The first thing the Apostle does is assume that the believer’s reaction to death will be one of grief, not celebration. In effect, he gives us permission to be sorrowful in bereavement. The second thing is that he limits the scope of our grief. Unlike unbelievers for whom death represents ultimate loss, believers have hope. Christ will return. The dead will be raised. Mortality will be clothed in immortality. Death will be swallowed up in victory. Those truths should temper our grief.

Someone will object, “Yes, but,” (Let us leave aside the fact that no good theological argument begins with, “Yes, but.”) “but ‘Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints!’”

True enough. Still, if the one who is the Resurrection and the Life wept at the tomb a friend, maybe we should too.

Kevin Carroll is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and serves as pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. He is an RTS graduate and blogs regularly at http://www.reformedandlovingit.org/ where this article first appeared. It is used with permission.

[Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced in this article is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]