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Beliefs about Death

Rom 6:23   The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord

Perhaps the distinction between believers and non-believers is no where seen so clearly as in the matter of death. Now death is a touchy and painful subject. Whatever else it is, it is the separating out of people and when the deceased is a loved one it is especially painful. If you want more extended thoughts on funerals, Rochford Life in its ‘Public Speaking’ help pages have one specifically on giving the eulogy at a funeral and covers many of the issues that arise then.

For here though, I simply wish to observe the differences that occur when there is a Christian funeral and one where presumably the deceased, and certainly their family have no faith. Now on that Public Speaking page about funerals I  note  the consideration of the two primary functions of a funeral: to bring closure and to provide an act of remembrance. The first is to help the mourners and the second is to both pay respect to the deceased and also to help the mourners. Observe the emphasis here on helping the mourners - because it’s too late to help the deceased, you can do nothing for them.  

Funerals are about how we try to cope with death, and having taken a number of funerals and simply been at a number of funerals, I have watched some fairly consistent behaviour which says something. When it comes to the mourning bit, we all mourn in different ways. Some people hardly show any outward signs of grief - ever - while others show immense anguish which may last for months or even years. Why we act like this is something else; it may be cultural or it may be how we are emotionally, or it may be something to do with belief.

For instance I have attended Christian funerals where there is, mixed with the sorrow of loss, a great sense of praise and thanksgiving where there are strong beliefs in an afterlife in heaven. I have also witnessed Christian funerals where the sense of sorrow has been stronger and the strength of praise and thanksgiving more muted. It’s a belief thing.

Then you come to the funeral where there was little or no religious faith and there are two approaches. The first approach follows the traditional style of a funeral with religious form. There are prayers and there are readings from the Bible interwoven with memories etc., and there is a committal at the end into God’s care. Now here is the strange thing that I have observed: people may come in, in distress and anguish but, somehow, in the course of the service there comes a sense of peace and tears cease. Now the Bible speaks of “the Father of compassion and the God of comfort” and all I am left with is the belief that even where there is a token acknowledgment of His presence, He does in fact somehow bring comfort to those who are in anguish. I’ve seen it happen again and again.

But then we come to the second approach where there was little or no religious faith. The act of remembrance, which in different forms takes up the whole of the ‘service’, may be really well done, but actually it almost seems that it makes it harder for the congregation with no belief to say goodbye. This seems especially so in a crematorium if the coffin is left in place at the end, and the congregation literally turn their back on it and walk out. When this happens, invariably many in the congregation go in tears and there is clearly no comfort received in the ‘service’ as good as remembrances brought of the deceased loved one may have been. I have observed this more than once!

So here you have these extremes: believers mixing sorrow with joy at where their loved one has gone, not-quite-believers hanging on to the threads of traditionalism and somehow receiving comfort, and non-believers receiving no comfort whatsoever from what can only be a time of remembrance.  A cynical psychologist would say that the first two groups are receiving comfort from wishful thinking, but suppose he was right, who of the three groups walk away in the best state? But then suppose he is wrong and the first group’s faith, based on historical fact, actually reflects reality, that there is a loving God and there is the possibility of a wonderful afterlife, it would be silly to ignore that.

Such thoughts, that get provoked at the time of death, make one question the whole of reality. Is life purely chance? If we are all merely molecules and nothing more then there is no such thing as ‘meaning’ and concepts such as ‘love’ and ‘beauty’ are merely chemical stirrings and pointless - and yet something in us denies this, sometime almost desperately wants there to be meaning and purpose in life, wants there to be something more when the body eventually shuts down or is shut down prematurely by illness or accident. Why should we have these desires - unless perhaps they are simply shadows of reality, pointing to the truth of what is in fact there? Whether we like it or not though, there is only one certainty in life - we will all die.