Preparing Your Funeral — Morning Devotions

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Transcript

Many Australians are changing their views about funerals and opting out of the traditional church type funeral service. Instead they plan a more informal type of Thanksgiving event in a convenient location.

I’ve conducted funerals for many years. I’ve always seen them as a privilege to say goodbye to someone who has died. I know this is not the most popular topic, planning your funeral, but I was prompted to reflect on this when a friend of mine, aged 90, typed up his own eulogy. He wants it read out at his traditional church service and a copy given to everyone who attends. He’s quite realistic about the end of life.

He says he’s lived a full life as a committed Christian. And he believes he’ll be in eternity with Jesus when he dies, and I respect his attitude very much. He’s quite calm about all this.

Death is a topic we do not enjoy, but one we cannot avoid. The older I get, the more people I know are dying due to old age.

ill health. We often prepare for weddings, birthdays, and milestones, but few prepare for the one appointment we cannot reschedule – the day we leave this life. Now, preparing for your funeral is not about fear, but about living in such a way that your life speaks long after you’re gone.

And I don’t believe this is a morbid topic. Psalm 90:12 in the Old Testament has got some good advice and a prayer from Moses as he looks back on his long life. Teach us, he said, to realise how short our lives are. Then our hearts will become wise. Moses reminds us that while the life of a man is frail and short, God is eternal.

Before the mountains were brought forth or ever you formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. Moses takes us back before God created the earth, and he reminded us that our God is before and beyond time and this world. He always has been.

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He is sufficient to Himself without us, and Moses makes this point in this same Psalm 90:4. For 1000 years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. Time does not have the same meaning for God that it has for us. For us, 1000 years is such a long time. We can’t really imagine experiencing that period of time. For God, it’s no different from a very short period. He is eternal above the time that He created. Moses is challenging us to realise that our days are few and to use our time wisely.

Many put off the most important things in life because they can do it tomorrow. But one day there won’t be a tomorrow. Rather than waiting, we should start using our time wisely and listening to what God says. That is certainly the best thing to do. In the end, life is short. In the moment, our days may feel long and hard, but they go by quicker than we think. And in a blink, they’re gone. Yet even knowing this, how many of us are mindful of how we spend our time.

We all want our lives to mean something after we’re gone, we want people at our funeral to have positive thoughts about us after we’re gone, especially our children.

Back in 1927, a novel called Death Comes for the Archbishop was published, one of the great stories of the last century written by the American Willa Cather. It’s based on the true story of two priests setting up a parish in New Mexico in the 1800s, finding the old archbishop in bed, struck down.

The young priest looks at him and tells him not to worry. After all, no one dies of a cold, and the older man, the archbishop, smiled and said, I won’t die of a cold, my son. I shall die of having lived. The old priest was stating the obvious. His cold wasn’t the problem. It was all the experiences of life, the frailty of old age that he’ll have to face. When you’re a kid. It feels like you’ll live forever.

But you get older and you realise that no one in this life wins the race against death. Sooner or later, the body will give in and the heart will give out. How do you want to be remembered by those who attend your funeral?

Let’s Pray

Dear God, this morning, it is sobering to think about the end of life and to even consider planning a funeral. But Lord, this is reality. Thank you that you haven’t left us alone without any answers. Whether long or short, may my life be fruitful for you, touching other people’s lives with goodness and kindness and sincerity. And may people say good things at my funeral. Amen.