I’ve had a day thinking about death. There’s cheery!
I had a funeral this morning of a very quiet little Italian lady who came to church but always slipped out at the end of the service. When I visited her there was little conversation, perhaps because English was her second language. I think her family were shocked how many were there. We discovered afterwards how many different groups in the city she belonged to.
This afternoon I met another family to plan a funeral for 12 January. I heard of two other people in our mission area who have passed on, one after fighting cancer very bravely, a dear soul who played the organ at our Ellington chapel and ran a catering business which catered for funerals - and the other living a long life. She was one of the founder members of our Harrogate Road church. I also have a funeral on 8 January and the widow is worrying there’s a snow bomb forecast that day.
I was at the hospital in Harrogate tonight and my visit included a discussion about heaven, and then dressed for work I was stopped by a young girl whose mother narrowly escaped death after a head on collision and she also told me her father was murdered last year. She wanted to talk! Then as I was having a quiet hot chocolate in the cafe area, a lady in tears asked me to pray for her father who is on end of life care. I held her hand and prayed for him and her. I heard her tell her daughter “I really appreciated that.” Likewise my steward at church told me this morning I always take a good funeral.
What is there to say about death in the Christmas season? I spoke this morning about God coming as Immanuel - God with us, and that not just being for a few days and all frothy and light but an abiding with us in life’s trouble and through death and with the promise of eternity. The passage used so often in funerals is where John records the words of Jesus - Immanuel - saying do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid. Jesus comes into mess and takes on death and shows us it isn’t the end of the story. If Jesus comes as Immanuel, that being one with us is there in pain, in confusion, in death and in life beyond it. He says do not be afraid. I love the fact that do not be afraid appears 365 times in the Bible - a word for every day. You can be afraid when there is a February 29!
Our late lamented pastoral tutor at college Dr David Dunn Wilson used to tell us as ministers we need to be experts in death. At Christmas we remember the entry of God into the reality of the world and that includes death. Death is real. It is hard. It isn’t nothing at all. You get round it. With help! But it cannot defeat us. That’s the good news of the Gospel. Immanuel isn’t just about Christmas, he’s about sharing life with us, dying and rising.
My service book which I received as an ordination present from the then Harpenden Circuit in 1999, is its most grubby in the funeral pages. I’ve taken a lot of them. David Dunn Wilson also told us students at Hartley to always preach the Gospel at a funeral.
What is it? Well… Jesus doesn’t abandon us. He is with us when it happens and leads us to whatever comes next. The good news of Christmas is that we are never alone and whatever we face even dying and being left behind to cope when we lose loved ones he gets it!
I hope though for less death and talk of death after today! It’s getting as bad as when I was serving in County Durham and took five or six funerals a week and spent my days taking a service getting in a hearse to go to Darlington crem then returning, taking another service in church then getting in another hearse to go to Durham crem. It was mad! And don’t mention the day a complicated family had a punch up at a graveside or the man who sang Celeste with swearing and all in a service. Son of a gun!
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