April 2025 Newsletter: Funerals
A blessed April to you and your loved ones!
April brings the full swing of Spring that I mentioned last month in the newsletter. That’s especially pertinent for us at Trinity this year, first and foremost, because April this year brings Easter. We have also suffered several losses in dear members of our church family over the past month, and we could all use another reminder of new life. With this focus, I wanted to take a bit of time to speak about funerals.
Why do we take time to have funerals? According to a few Funeral Directors, it is becoming more common for people to opt out of the traditional funeral service. You yourself may have heard of family members or friends that have a different kind of service – sometimes at a church, sometimes at another place; God may be a part of the service or may be omitted. Nevertheless, I would assert that we need funerals today more than ever.
I know some object to the term “funeral” as having too many sad connotations – the word itself comes from the Latin word for death or corpse after all – but I think it’s a term that we should keep. The reality of death is that there is someone in our lives that is missing. That warrants a time of mourning, even if the death came at the end of a long road of suffering or pain. At a funeral, we mourn. At a funeral, we can’t avoid the death that is before us. And in all actuality, I would have us keep it that way.
This isn’t because I want people to be miserable. This isn’t because I want people to feel hurt. Rather, it is because the hope that we have in Christ is one that is centered to and connected with Resurrection. Easter is where Christ becomes, as Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 15:20, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. He’s the first, but those who die believing in his promises will follow him in resurrection. And to be resurrected a person needs to die.
The greatest hope we have in Christ is that death is not the end. Culturally, we live at a time where people would have us push death to the side – that people live on in some way through their memory, or through their possessions, or through their remains, or that death is just a part of life. The assumption is that we should celebrate a life well lived rather than mourn a death. But when we push away death, we push away the fullness of God’s promises. Death is the strictest revelation of the law, yes, but where the strength of the law weighs heaviest on our hearts the Gospel is all the sweeter. The truth about Jesus’ work for our lives is best communicated in its strength at the point of death. And the truth is, we don’t need to hide from its reality. Death cannot defeat God.
So, if you come to a funeral at Trinity, and wonder why I focus on talking about a funeral rather than other terms that are floating out there, know that my goal every time you walk into a service at Trinity is that you walk away with more trust in God’s promises and the comfort that they bring, and I believe that speaking in the way I do will aid that goal. And while funerals will come with a lot of mourning and rejoicing, they will always come with even more hope. Blessings on your Lent and Easter!