Funerals R Us!

What comes to mind when you think of a funeral? Death? Bereavement? Sadness? Whatever it is, it's nothing good, right? Boy, have I got news for you! When the Bible says, "It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting" (Ecclesiastes 7:2), the writer was on to something!

In the previous verse of that same chapter, Solomon writes, "the day of death (is better) than the day of one's birth." Those are some words, as Charlotte the spider would say! Chock-full of meaning and truth!

We just got back from Aunt Ethel's funeral and I am on such a spiritual high I can barely contain myself. It was awesome! In fact, I was so, so blessed that I feel constrained to dedicate this blog to three of the most wonderful funerals I have ever been to (though there have been others that also merit the designation of being a real "celebration of life").

The first funeral I would like to revisit is that of my late husband, Steve Muse, at which Pastor Tommy Scott officiated. While Brother Scott is an anointed minister, and I was cognizant at the time that his words were good and uplifting, the exact details of what he shared are lost behind the veil of sorrow that colored every aspect of that time, so much so that, sad to say, I am unable to give even a summary of what he said. What I have not forgotten is the pervading atmosphere--it was charged with a kind of holy electricity. By the time Brother Scott finished speaking, I felt like dancing in the aisle and crying because I was not the one gone on to Heaven! Later I heard a colleague say, "It felt like a revival!" And it did. Yes, there were tears, but those tears were laced with a very real joy that our loved one was in Heaven.

Now for Funeral Number Two. After my husband died, I comforted myself with the thought, "Now that their father is gone, my Uncle Cheo will help me finish raising my boys." It was a nice thought, but it was not to be. Three months later at 6 something in the morning, I got a call from my aunt, my uncle's wife. "Janine, your uncle is dead." He had slipped away to Heaven in his sleep.

A few days into the heartbreak came the funeral. I need to preface this with a little of my uncle's background.

Eliseo Villarreal was a well-known defense coach in the Rio Grande Valley. He designed the Sea Wall Defense and was so good at what he did that he is the only assistant coach to be inducted into the Rio Grande Valley Athletic Hall of Fame. The field house at the Tarpon Stadium was named in his honor posthumously. More than once he was offered a job as a head coach but he always refused. Head coaches are the usual scapegoats (namely, the ones axed) when a season goes south and Uncle Cheo wanted stability for his family, for his children to know the security of a home free from the danger of being lost by having to move in the wake of a troubled football season. So he stuck with the title, "assistant coach", with its lower pay, even though the family can testify that there were many times when he took up the slack by those who were over him.

At his funeral, many colleagues and former students gave testimonials. One of them, who had been a member of the chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes Uncle Cheo led (a branch of the very FCA that he brought to the RGV in 1972), shared an interesting, even mind-boggling, tidbit.

My uncle worked in Port Isabel, Texas, for some 24 years during his lengthy coaching career. When a new high school was built there, the FCA met on the stage in the very auditorium in which his funeral was later held. The group was in a circle, sitting on chairs up on the stage. Uncle Cheo, eyes closed (just like Grandma Maria when she ministered! I had no idea he and his mother were alike in this respect!), told the group, "People,"--he had a penchant for addressing his listeners in this way--"we need to pray that this auditorium be filled with people hearing about Jesus and praising Him!"

Believe you me, when I heard this my hair stood on end! So many people had come to my uncle's funeral that it had to be held in the high school's auditorium, with overflow rooms with TVs. Towards the end, the minister extended an invitation to those gathered there to make a confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ--and hundreds stood up to pray. What my uncle had prayed for came to pass at his funeral! It was moving, it was supernatural, it was beyond the limits of anything considered the norm in funerals. It was something never to be forgotten. From his death came new life!

Then just last week came extraordinary Funeral Number Three, Aunt Ethel's funeral. This was the same Aunt Ethel who, at her oldest son's funeral, raised her hands by his casket, broke out in a medley of tongues, and began to pour forth beautiful words, an ode, if you will, extolling what Mike had been in life. It was one of the most beautiful, moving things I have ever seen in my life.

Now, at her own funeral, and as words were shared to memorialize her life, a light was shown on her pertinacity in talking about the Lord. She had a way of drawing every conversation back to Him. Simply put, she loved Jesus--in words, and in deeds. We are so honored, so much the richer, for having known her, having broken bread with her, having been a small part of her life.

But the thing that put a smile on my face (and keeps making me smile every time I think on it), is this. About an hour before Aunt Ethel went home to be with the Lord, she raised her hands.

"Mom," her kids asked her, "why are you raising your hands?"

She answered, "Because I see Jesus!" Then she looked up and added, "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!"

Her son quipped, "I couldn't help thinking, 'This woman bossed us around all her life and now she's going to boss Jesus!'"

Needless to say, this had us all break out in laughter. I like to think it tickled Jesus, too. Scripture tells us that we are made in His image; it stands to reason, then, that if we have a sense of humor, it is because He has one, too.

So, despite the tears at having a loved one precede us to Heaven, we bask in a beautiful, sincere joy that Aunt Ethel got to see Jesus before her departure, just another confirmation that she is with Him this very hour. What heart warming treasures shared at this never-to-be-forgotten funeral!

Yes, partings are by their very nature sad. But there is a special joy to be found in the funerals of those who know Jesus. In such cases, funerals become instruments of comfort, of blessing, they become events you are so glad you attended--for when it is made abundantly, emphatically clear that the departed knew the Lord, sorrow morphs into joy, and the sense of loss is tempered by the knowing that the newly departed loved one is now enjoying the very presence of God.

And soon, very soon, we will see them again.

"A good name"--the name of Christian!--"is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth" (Ecclesiastes 7:10). Why? Because death is the threshold into the magnificent eternal life this temporal life is spent preparing for!