It challenges everyone to consider their own standing before God and to be ready to meet Him on the day of their death. It also offers comfort in the face of death through the death, life, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Consider as an illustration the first question in the Heidelberg Catechism, a series of questions and answers explaining the Biblical faith written in the 16th century and adopted and loved by millions of Christians since: “What is your only comfort in life and death?”
Notice, however, that the focus is on the individual. The problem with this perspective is that an individual’s death is not only about that individual. It is about the family and those closely connected with that person.
The Bible answers the question of how an individual ought to face his or her own death. Does it have anything to say to the family about dealing with death?
I was wondering about this a few months ago. I was thinking, does God have anything to say about funerals? I quickly remembered that the Bible was full of examples of funerals.
Recently, I have been studying the book of Genesis. This is a book about families, and, not surprisingly, it records several funerals and describes in detail what happened.
The first thing you observe is that these funerals bring families together. For example, Isaac and Ishmael, who did not seem to be on best of terms, came together to bury their father Abraham (see also 35:29 and 49:1).
Second, the families take time to mourn. This is most clearly seen in Genesis 50. Joseph’s sons take 70 days to mourn for Jacob in Canaan, and they take a journey together to mourn him and bury him in the land of Canaan.
Third, when these funerals are done well, they allow the family to heal. Genesis 47–50 record Jacob’s preparations for death, his death, and what followed after. The conclusion of this series of events is Joseph’s firm declaration of his forgiveness of his brothers and his determination to take leadership in providing for the family in Egypt.
Most of the funerals in Genesis allow people to mourn the loss of a key person from the family system, deal with unresolved issues, and allow a new structure to form.
By way of contrast, consider the death of Rachel. Rachel was in a cold war against her sister and their servants (who had also served as Jacob’s wives) over Jacob’s affection and devotion. She died immediately after giving birth to her son. She was so full of frustration that she named her son “Son of my Affliction”!
Jacob took the child and said, “I don’t think so. We’ll call him ‘Son of my Strength.'”
Rachel’s death was unforeseen, and it was not handled with same care that the other funerals were. One result was that things got worse. Jacob looked to Rachel’s son to comfort him. This choice exacerbated the already tense situation with the sons of his other wives, and they eventually kidnapped their brother and sold him as a slave.
In light of this, I think there are several important lessons to consider about funerals and family relationships from the Bible.
The presence of funerals in the Bible indicates that God is interested in the key events of our family life. He takes an interest in these exits from our family system. God made the family, loves it, and is involved with it.
We need to take the time to mourn losses. This is true of all losses: opportunities, jobs, friendships, and death. It is especially true of funerals. No one has the right to demand that we put a period on our mourning, but when we take the time to mourn, we provide opportunity for healing.
Death and funerals are opportunities as well as losses. We can speak into people’s lives, we can call people together who might not have spoken for a while, we can testify to God’s grace, and we can recognize that there is hope for the future.
At the end of his life, Jacob gave Joseph’s children, Ephraim and Manasseh, the status of his own sons. Then he blessed them. He spoke into their lives and encouraged them in regards to the future:
May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked faithfully, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the Angel who has delivered me from all harm—may he bless these boys. May they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they increase greatly on the earth.
This blessing embodies the grieving and the opportunity for the family in times of loss, death, and funerals.