A Funeral

Yesterday, August 1st, 2013, I spent the day driving up to Spindale, NC to attend my first cousin Alice Sexton's funeral.  She was 77 years old and the last of my father's sister Aunt Carries' children to pass.  Her liver had failed he and she was racked in pain these last few and the passing was a blessing.  I got to spend some time with some of my second cousins, and meet a few thirds.  But this post is not about me nor my family, it is about the two preachers who presided at the services for the funeral.  I am printing this and plan to mail it to then latter.  Had this been a regular church meeting I would have stood up in the middle of the sermon and ask for them to justify with scripture what they were preaching.

I have two bones to pick with the first preacher, and since one of them is also the problem I have with the second preacher I will explain that issue first.  He was the guest preacher and during his sermone preached from the Book of Job to make a point that as believers we will be tested by the Devil, and while the Lord will giver Satin power over our things and the power to make us sick, but the Lord would not give the power of death over us just as He had held that power from Satin over Job.

This is what I would have the first preacher explain with scripture, how does he explain Saint Peter and all the other Christians Martyrs who have died for their faith from the ones fed to the lions in Rome to the ones in the Mideast today being killed for no more than refusing not be a Christian and convert to Islam.  Preacher think about what you are saying, just because we American Christians have not been put to that test yet does not mean that the Lord will require our life to prove our faith.

Now to the second issue which both preacher were guilty of preaching a heresy.  While both brought up the resurrection several time each, they both over and over again drove home the false belief that Alice was in Heaven as soon as she died, that she was looking down on us as they spoke.  They both used this, that if we wanted to see Alice again that we had better get right with the Lord and accept Jesus as our Savior. I ask both of you is preaching a lie, e.g., the departed whomever they maybe, is sitting in Heaven as they sit through the sermon, is worth to your sole what little confort you think this lie will give the bereaved?

Preachers you just preached away the Resurrection and the judgment, since you both preached the Resurrection and that Alias was with the Lord as you spoke what would you have us believe?  That the Lord will put Alias back in the grave to open it up ate the end of days so she can be resurrected and have her name read from the Book of Life?In closing I would suggest that a funeral should be about the deceased and not an opportunity to preach to a captive audience.  I will give it to the second preacher, he did bring Alice's name into his sermon much more that did the first preacher, but he did not know Alice but in passing.  

You, whom ever was in charge of the service, should have asked those who came if they had anything to say about Alice, her live that they knew she had lived, and shared with her.

I would have talked about our playing as children, how my father would visit he mother almost every weekend of my childhood.  How the grass could not grow in their yard because of all the children playing in it.  I would have expressed my sorry in her leaving, and my belief that come the Resurrection she would be raised from the grave and called before the Lord and the Lamb would read her name from the Book of Life.