This is a stream of consciousness processing death of good people:

Are funerals to be a time of mourning or celebration?

Celebrate the life of the person.

Grieve their loss from our lives.

Celebrate that they can be joined with Jesus and fellow believers in heaven.

Grieve that we can no longer have their wisdom and goodness in our lives.

Celebrate all that we learned and the love we received from them.

Grieve that we can no longer show them love.

Are they in heaven as soon as they have passed, or are they waiting? Luke 23:43: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise…” and 2 Corinthians 5:8, “We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord…” would suggest that those that pass get to be with God straight away, which is truly a comfort for those of us left behind.

The flavour of a funeral often reflects the life of the person just lived. Not to make sweeping statements but, in my experience, those who have had a large impact on others tend to have a funeral service where the eulogies are focused on how the person served others, rather than eulogies that focus on the person’s life events. How I hope that is how my own funeral plays out.

It is, of course, a tragedy that those who have an impact on others are taken at all. It takes a truly spiritually-strong person, who understands who God is, to lose a loved one and then announce ‘God is good’. To anyone who doesn’t understand God is, we see the loss of a life, especially one such as a pastor or someone who is constantly loving others, living righteously, and they see that as God being bad, confusing or possibly even ‘mean’.

God, however, never promises earthly comfort, or even that we deserve or are guaranteed a long life in this imperfect, broken world. What we are promised is eternal life. Revelation 21:4 says “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

I am admittedly very bad at singing in church. As soon as the music starts to a song that I have literally sung at least five hundred times as a church-goer since birth, my brain shuts off to the lyrics. It takes a change of context, like a funeral, to fully appreciate what I am singing:

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me

From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny

No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand

Till He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand

(In Christ Alone by Stuart Townend)

I appreciate funerals for the reflection they necessitate on my own life, and the priorities that I have on this really short time we have on earth. The day after my own funeral, people aren’t going to care (or even know) about how much knowledge I had in my head; which video games I had played; which movies or TV shows I watched; which podcasts I listened to; which books I read.

I once heard a very eminent secular scholar suggest that the reason they do their research is so that they can ‘live on through their research outputs’. Regardless of the fact that their research is not in a field that is traditionally considered historically noteworthy (i.e. it is doubtful that their research outputs will remain relevant for many years after their death), there is also the delusion that legacy of work is really an achievement of immortality.

I would much rather my legacy of work be that of loving others here on earth, while living a truly immortal life with God with my brothers and sisters in Christ.

For those who have lost good people from their lives, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4). In other words, those who are grieving are loved, and God is there to comfort you.