A Time To Die
Preaching
The Life Of Christ And The Death Of A Loved One
Crafting The Funeral Homily
A Funeral Homily For Lent
Canticle: Pascha Nostrum
For everything there is a season,
and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die.
These opening lines from the book of Ecclesiastes say that there is a season for everything. There is a time to be born. There is a time to die. Such a time it is, for we are in the season of Lent. And if ever there is a time that the Christian faith dwells on death, practices it, even celebrates it, surely it is this time of Lent.
Lent began on Ash Wednesday with those solemn words of death: ''Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.''
And in the words of the Psalmist, ''You turn us back to the dust and say, 'Go back, O child of earth.' ''
We receive the ashes of Ash Wednesday as a sign of our mortality: a precursor of our own death and those final words: ''Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.''
Lent is also the traditional time of self--denial, of practicing 'dying to self.'' By our giving up of chocolate, meat, television, and other things, we practice, in ever so small a way, our own inevitable death.
Lent culminates in Holy Week with the reading of Christ's passion, the story of his crucifixion, the tolling of the bells on Good Friday at his death. Then Holy Saturday - the day the church remembers Jesus in the tomb. Altars everywhere are stripped bare. Veils shroud the crosses in churches across the country. Lent and Holy Week bring us face to face with death.
If one could choose the hour of one's death, then surely Lent, filled with all the symbols of our mortality, would be the time to choose. For everything there is a proper season, a time; and Lent is truly the time to die.
Baptized Into Death
For the Christian, however, death has already happened. Death is a past event. What am I talking about? I am talking about baptism.
Our baptismal day is the day, according to the Christian faith, that we truly die and join Christ in his death.
Listen to what Paul says:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death.
When the sign of the cross is traced on a person's forehead at the time of baptism, that is the real moment of death. Again, Paul explains:
At baptism our old being (our life before baptism) was crucified with Christ; our old body of sin is destroyed ... For one who has died is freed from sin.
So death is not a new experience for a Christian. We have experienced it in baptism, and we die over and over again in ashes, in Lent, Good Friday ... whenever we die to self.
Death And Resurrection
So we are here in this season of death because N. has died. But strangely enough, we believe that we are not here to preside over a death. Rather, as Christians we are here to celebrate resurrection.
There is a time to die, but there is also a time to live.
''For if we have been united with him in a death like his,'' Paul says, ''we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.''
Make no mistakes about it: we are here to celebrate not death, but resurrection! As we say at every celebration of the eucharist, ''Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast. Alleluia.''
Traditionally, the liturgy of the dead, this burial service, is an Easter liturgy. That is, it finds all its meaning in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Today, therefore, is a joyful occasion: it is the celebration of a time to live in the midst of the season of death.
So, for the space of an hour, we put Lent, its purple vestments, its solemn liturgy, its penitential petitions aside. Make no mistake: we are here to celebrate resurrection. For an hour or so, it is Easter: we bring out the Paschal Easter candle. We put on white vestments, symbol of the resurrection. We proclaim the triple alleluias of the Great Fifty Days of Easter precisely because the season to die has been transformed by our Lord Jesus Christ into a season to live!
''For if we have died with Christ,'' writes Paul, ''we believe that we shall also live with him.'' Therefore what we do today is gather to celebrate the season to live: to live eternally.
We come, then, to celebrate N.'s life. It is for the next hour a season of life. A season of celebration. A season of resurrection.
A Time To Grieve
All of this does not mean that we will not grieve, or mourn, or weep over our separation. The love that we have for N. brings sorrow. This is a time to weep, a time to mourn, a time to lose, as the author of Ecclesiastes described. A time to die in the season of death. Yes, we acknowledge and struggle to accept the pain of this loss.
In the days ahead we will look to God to support us in our grief, to help us live each day. I encourage you to claim the promise of the book of Lamentations, that
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is [God's] faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22--23)
Comfort and help is never more than a prayer away, and God invites us to call upon that strength daily.
Alleluia
It is true that we gather this morning in the season of death.
For we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth we shall return. For so did God ordain when creating us saying, ''You are dust, and to dust you shall return.'' (BCP p. 499)
But for the Christian, it is also the season to live. Our brother [sister] has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord. We are here to celebrate the season of resurrection. ''For if we have been united with him in a death like this, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.''
So it is in the midst of Lent, we celebrate Easter. In the midst of death, we celebrate life. In the midst of ashes and dust, we celebrate resurrection. In the midst of sorrow we shout with joy this triple Easter alleluia:
Yes, all of us go down to the dust,
yet even at the grave we make our song:
(BCP p. 499)
Alleluia!
Alleluia!
Alleluia!
Amen.
Canticle: Pascha Nostrum
For everything there is a season,
and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die.
These opening lines from the book of Ecclesiastes say that there is a season for everything. There is a time to be born. There is a time to die. Such a time it is, for we are in the season of Lent. And if ever there is a time that the Christian faith dwells on death, practices it, even celebrates it, surely it is this time of Lent.
Lent began on Ash Wednesday with those solemn words of death: ''Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.''
And in the words of the Psalmist, ''You turn us back to the dust and say, 'Go back, O child of earth.' ''
We receive the ashes of Ash Wednesday as a sign of our mortality: a precursor of our own death and those final words: ''Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.''
Lent is also the traditional time of self--denial, of practicing 'dying to self.'' By our giving up of chocolate, meat, television, and other things, we practice, in ever so small a way, our own inevitable death.
Lent culminates in Holy Week with the reading of Christ's passion, the story of his crucifixion, the tolling of the bells on Good Friday at his death. Then Holy Saturday - the day the church remembers Jesus in the tomb. Altars everywhere are stripped bare. Veils shroud the crosses in churches across the country. Lent and Holy Week bring us face to face with death.
If one could choose the hour of one's death, then surely Lent, filled with all the symbols of our mortality, would be the time to choose. For everything there is a proper season, a time; and Lent is truly the time to die.
Baptized Into Death
For the Christian, however, death has already happened. Death is a past event. What am I talking about? I am talking about baptism.
Our baptismal day is the day, according to the Christian faith, that we truly die and join Christ in his death.
Listen to what Paul says:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death.
When the sign of the cross is traced on a person's forehead at the time of baptism, that is the real moment of death. Again, Paul explains:
At baptism our old being (our life before baptism) was crucified with Christ; our old body of sin is destroyed ... For one who has died is freed from sin.
So death is not a new experience for a Christian. We have experienced it in baptism, and we die over and over again in ashes, in Lent, Good Friday ... whenever we die to self.
Death And Resurrection
So we are here in this season of death because N. has died. But strangely enough, we believe that we are not here to preside over a death. Rather, as Christians we are here to celebrate resurrection.
There is a time to die, but there is also a time to live.
''For if we have been united with him in a death like his,'' Paul says, ''we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.''
Make no mistakes about it: we are here to celebrate not death, but resurrection! As we say at every celebration of the eucharist, ''Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast. Alleluia.''
Traditionally, the liturgy of the dead, this burial service, is an Easter liturgy. That is, it finds all its meaning in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Today, therefore, is a joyful occasion: it is the celebration of a time to live in the midst of the season of death.
So, for the space of an hour, we put Lent, its purple vestments, its solemn liturgy, its penitential petitions aside. Make no mistake: we are here to celebrate resurrection. For an hour or so, it is Easter: we bring out the Paschal Easter candle. We put on white vestments, symbol of the resurrection. We proclaim the triple alleluias of the Great Fifty Days of Easter precisely because the season to die has been transformed by our Lord Jesus Christ into a season to live!
''For if we have died with Christ,'' writes Paul, ''we believe that we shall also live with him.'' Therefore what we do today is gather to celebrate the season to live: to live eternally.
We come, then, to celebrate N.'s life. It is for the next hour a season of life. A season of celebration. A season of resurrection.
A Time To Grieve
All of this does not mean that we will not grieve, or mourn, or weep over our separation. The love that we have for N. brings sorrow. This is a time to weep, a time to mourn, a time to lose, as the author of Ecclesiastes described. A time to die in the season of death. Yes, we acknowledge and struggle to accept the pain of this loss.
In the days ahead we will look to God to support us in our grief, to help us live each day. I encourage you to claim the promise of the book of Lamentations, that
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is [God's] faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22--23)
Comfort and help is never more than a prayer away, and God invites us to call upon that strength daily.
Alleluia
It is true that we gather this morning in the season of death.
For we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth we shall return. For so did God ordain when creating us saying, ''You are dust, and to dust you shall return.'' (BCP p. 499)
But for the Christian, it is also the season to live. Our brother [sister] has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord. We are here to celebrate the season of resurrection. ''For if we have been united with him in a death like this, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.''
So it is in the midst of Lent, we celebrate Easter. In the midst of death, we celebrate life. In the midst of ashes and dust, we celebrate resurrection. In the midst of sorrow we shout with joy this triple Easter alleluia:
Yes, all of us go down to the dust,
yet even at the grave we make our song:
(BCP p. 499)
Alleluia!
Alleluia!
Alleluia!
Amen.
