A Theology Of The Funeral

The Christian funeral must find ways to affirm Christian belief in Christ's victory over death, commend the deceased to God's mercy, and comfort the survivors.

The key question to ask in focusing on the theology of the funeral is, "?What belief does this ritual express regarding the community's understanding of God??" Egyptian pyramids and neolithic passage tombs stocked with food and material treasures tell us that those communities believed in a life beyond physical death which they imagined to be similar to earthly life. Christian funerals, by contrast, ought to express the community's belief in eternal life—that the dead have passed beyond the suffering, trials, and needs of bodily life into the realm of God where every tear will be wiped away (Rev. 21:4). If the assembly is clad in black, weeping, wailing, and not participating in the ritual at all, it is difficult to imagine that they believe their dead have triumphed and are living in heavenly bliss. There will, of course, be cultural differences regarding mourning customs, but they shouldn't negate the community's foundational beliefs. During the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), when the Roman Catholic bishops of the world examined the Catholic funeral liturgy, they saw just such a conflict between the church's theology of death and the ritual that was supposed to be expressing that theology. They saw that the paschal character so essential to Christian faith was not clearly seen in the rituals of death and burial. As a result, all of the rituals related to death and burial were revised in the Order of Christian Funerals (1989). Christians believe that God rewards the good, but punishes the wicked, so another important theological element of the funeral is commending the deceased to God's mercy, confident that God reads the heart, and is therefore more just than humans can even imagine. A third important theological element of the funeral is acknowledging the deep grief of the assembly, their desire to comfort one another, and their desire to be comforted by God through the church's ministry. Regardless of the circumstances of death, someone they love has died, and the mourners stand in need of consolation. The funeral ritual, therefore, should not deny that reality, but address it. The American way of death, about which so many sociologists have written, is often a denial of death's ultimacy, where corpses are turned into mannequins, reposed in a tableau of pretense. The Christian way of death needs to witness the belief that death is not endless sweet repose, but the doorway through which the Christian passes into new life.