funerals

Ask the Pastor – Funerals and Weddings

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Question:

I would like to know how funerals and weddings were started in the church.

Answer:

The origin for both of these services is found in the days of Adam and Eve. The book of Genesis is the seedbed for every doctrine found in the rest of the Bible. It is the place of beginnings. There are many matters that will find a more developed maturity, which is related in the Bible at later times, but the beginnings of all things as pertaining to us are found in Genesis.

The first wedding is found in Genesis 2:21–25. The ceremony is short but complete in putting man and woman together as mates for life. This is the model that is still used today in modern ceremonies. I have quoted many times from this passage to provide the setting for the wedding service. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” The fact that God intended that this service should serve as a model for all marriages is found in these words. Adam and Eve did not have father or mother. They were created fully mature human beings right from the hand of God, yet the text helps us to understand the process of husband and wife coming together in a bond of matrimony unto themselves till the end of time. There are several other marriages spoken of in the Bible, but the one that captures our attention is found in the New Testament story of John 2.

Culturally, wedding ceremonies differ. But there is one thing that is acknowledged by all cultures and that is a recognition that two people are united in marriage to signify that they are not just living together in an adulterous lifestyle. Whether or not a piece of paper [marriage license] is present is not the issue. The issue is that the community has recognized that these two have left their homes of father and mother and are setting up their own home. So a wedding is a means of keeping law and order in the community. Otherwise chaos would result such as we see in society today where marriage laws are allowed to go unenforced.

A funeral takes place as a means of allowing grief to be processed. Grief is an emotion which, if not allowed to be expressed, can and does cause great mental distress. The process of dealing with the death of a friend or of a family member is important to the whole plan of salvation. Death is a reminder to what sin causes. (Romans 6:23.) But like the plan of salvation, God has a healing process in dealing with grief. Everyone who loves is vulnerable to the pain of grief, for love means attachment, and all human attachments are subject to loss. But grief need not, should not, be a destructive emotion of loss without hope.

Knowing this, we find that Jesus attended several funerals in the New Testament. The shortest text in the New Testament is John 11:35: “Jesus wept.” Funerals are for the purpose of getting the grief process started so that life for the living can go on.

Because marriages and funerals are an integral part of human life, they must also be a part of the life of church members. This is why these two issues are found in Scripture. For both weddings and funerals, the focus must be upon how God enters into the process. God as the center of the marriage and a funeral with God as the center provides hope for a sinful world. Never miss the fact that human emotions need to be expressed—joy in the wedding and sorrow in the loss of a loved one. Jesus has given us examples in both of these.

Pastor Mike Baugher is Associate Speaker for Steps to Life Ministry. If you have a question you would like Pastor Mike to answer, e-mail it to: landmarks@stepstolife.org, or mail it to: LandMarks, P. O. Box 782828, Wichita, KS 67278.

Questions and Answers – Attending Sabbath Funerals

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In Life Sketches of Ellen G. White (1915), 252, Sister White describes the death and burial of her husband, James.

“The next morning he [James] seemed slightly to revive, but about noon he had a chill, which left him unconscious. At 5 P.M., Sabbath, August 6, 1881, he quietly breathed his life away, without a struggle or a groan.

“The shock of my husband’s death—so sudden, so unexpected—fell upon me with crushing weight. In my feeble condition I had summoned strength to remain at his bedside to the last; but when I saw his eyes closed in death, exhausted nature gave way, and I was completely prostrated. For some time I seemed balancing between life and death. The vital flame burned so low that a breath might extinguish it. At night my pulse would grow feeble, and my breathing fainter and fainter till it seemed about to cease. Only by the blessing of God and the unremitting care and watchfulness of physician and attendants was my life preserved.

“Though I had not risen from my sick-bed after my husband’s death, I was borne to the Tabernacle on the following Sabbath to attend his funeral. [Emphasis added.] At the close of the sermon I felt it a duty to testify to the value of the Christian’s hope in the hour of sorrow and bereavement. As I arose, strength was given me, and I spoke about ten minutes, exalting the mercy and love of God in the presence of that crowded assembly. At the close of the services I followed my husband to Oak Hill Cemetery, where he was laid to rest until the morning of the resurrection.

“My physical strength had been prostrated by the blow, yet the power of divine grace sustained me in my great bereavement. When I saw my husband breathe his last, I felt that Jesus was more precious to me than He ever had been in any previous hour of my life. When I stood by my first-born, and closed his eyes in death, I could say, ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’ [Job 1:21]. And I felt then that I had a comforter in Jesus. And when my latest born was torn from my arms, and I could no longer see its little head upon the pillow by my side, then I could say, ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ And when he upon whose large affections I had leaned, with whom I had labored for thirty-five years, was taken away, I could lay my hands upon his eyes, and say, ‘I commit my treasure to Thee until the morning of the resurrection.’ ”

Though this experience is not advocating for Sabbath funerals, it is clearly seen that it is not wrong. You will notice that there was a whole week for the preparations to be made for the burial before the actual funeral service and the body interred.

Often in Western culture, family and friends bury or cremate the dead in a private service, and then later hold a memorial service, which is often held on Sabbath so many are able to attend.