IT’S YOUR FUNERAL
Allow
me to share a true story from another pastor in our diocese. An elderly woman
would tease her pastor about his habit of making the congregation sing all the
stanzas to long hymns. Recently this woman was called to her eternal rest. When
the pastor entered the funeral home to meet with the family, the deceased
woman’s daughter approached the pastor with a piece of paper in hand. It was a
list of hymns the woman had picked to be sung at her funeral. The one that
caught the pastor’s eye was hymn 528, Paul Gerhardt’s If God Himself Be For Me. That hymn has fifteen verses. The pastor
remarked that this belonged on the record of “amazing gifts” given to a pastor by
his parishioners.
What
hymns do you want people to sing at your funeral? This may not be something
you’ve given much thought. I would encourage you to do just that. Your funeral
is more than just an opportunity for your survivors to mourn your passing. It
is much more than one element in the grieving process. Your funeral is your
final confession of the Christian faith to all those who survive you in this
life. Your funeral is your last confession of the Gospel to your mourning
family, friends, and congregation. In that final moment what do you want them
to hear?
The
church catholic has always placed a great emphasis on the content of our
hymnody. We confess in the Augsburg Confession:
Falsely are our
churches accused of abolishing the Mass; for the Mass is retained among us, and celebrated with the highest reverence.
Nearly all the usual ceremonies are also preserved, save that the parts sung in
Latin are interspersed here and there with German hymns, which have been added to teach the people. For ceremonies are needed to this
end alone that the unlearned be taught what they
need to know of Christ. (Augsburg
Confession, Article XXIV. 1-4)
The
chief purpose of hymns (and ceremonies) is not to praise the Triune God. The
chief purpose of a hymn is to teach people what they need to know about Christ.
A hymn that doesn’t teach us anything about Christ can’t praise God, because we
can only praise God through faith in Christ. This is why we don’t sing the
“contemporary Christian music” in our churches. Most don’t teach anything about
Christ. The ones that do teach something about Christ are deficient when
compared to the hymns of the Early Church and Reformation eras. The Apology of
the Augsburg Confession expands on this idea:
Since ceremonies, however, ought to be observed
both to teach men Scripture, and that those admonished by the Word may conceive
faith and fear [of God, and obtain comfort], and thus also may pray (for these
are the designs of ceremonies), we retain the Latin language on account of
those who are learning and understand Latin, and we mingle with it German
hymns, in order that the people also may have something to learn, and by which
faith and fear may be called forth. (Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article
XXIV.3-4)
The hymns we sing are written to
preach Christ and His salvation to us in our singing. They are designed to so
that we learn them so that their message may “call forth” faith in God and the
true fear of God.
Some of you may have children
who have departed from the true faith. Many of you have children whose faith is
uncertain. What better gift could you give them (besides your fervent daily
prayers for them) than a sure, certain, and clear confession of the true faith
at your funeral? Many of us are tempted to pick the “old favorites” at a
funeral, like Amazing Grace or some
other American Protestant hymn. But these old favorites, while comforting in a
sentimental way, are not comforting the way the Gospel is. These songs are
vague about the gospel at best and gospel deficient at worst. Have you noticed that
Amazing Grace doesn’t mention the
name of Jesus at all? According to this song, grace saves us, but that grace is
not attached to Jesus, His atoning death upon the cross, or faith in these
promises of Christ. The reason that people, even pagans, don’t mind singing
this song is because it doesn’t preach anything to them. Yes, we are saved by
grace. But the grace of God is not a nameless or faceless (or bloodless) thing.
The grace of God is revealed to us only in Jesus Christ.
Now that I’ve thoroughly beat up
many people’s favorite hymn, allow me to point you to something with a bit more
substance. The Gehardt hymn mentioned in the opening story tells of God’s love
in Christ Jesus. It is a hymnic version of Romans 8.31-39. Here are just a few
of the fifteen verses:
My Jesus is my
Splendor,
My
Sun, my Light, alone;
Were
He not my Defender
Before
god’s awe-full throne,
I
never should find favor
And
mercy in His sight,
But
be destroyed forever
As
darkness by the light. (v.4)
He
cancelled my offenses,
Delivered
me from death;
He
is the Lord who cleanses
My
soul from sin through faith.
In
Him I can be cheerful,
Bod,
and undaunted, aye;
In
Him I am not fearful
Of
God’s great judgment day. (v.5)
In
yonder home doth flourish
My
heritage, my lot;
Though
here I die and perish,
My
heaven shall fail me not.
Though
care my life oft saddens
And
causeth tears to flow,
The
light of Jesus gladdens
And
sweetens every woe. (v.10)
What do you wish to say to your
loved ones, your family, and those you know who are unbelievers or uncertain
about the Gospel? Say it at your funeral. Pay attention as we sing
theologically solid hymns during the Divine Service and make a note of the ones
that catch your ear and heart with their Gospel clarity. By doing this you can
put the pure Gospel onto your survivor’s lips so they might sing it and allow
that hymn to do what hymns are meant to do: teach Christ to sinners. Your
funeral is the time to be bold. It is your last opportunity to confess your God-given
faith in Christ to everyone who mourns you, so that they might receive the
blessed consolation that your sins were forgiven through the means of Grace,
and that, having been justified by faith in Christ in this life, you now enjoy
that eternal joy and rest that isn’t found in generic grace, but the grace of
God which is revealed only in Christ Jesus. Ad Finem
Illum! Amen.
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