Funeral and Gospel

Nothing quite concentrates the mind like the sight of a coffin, especially when you knew the person whose body is inside. Eloquently, profoundly, it speaks of closure, of a certain finality, that things will never be the same again. Death suddenly isn't an abstraction, isn't a distant concept, or a matter of biology or medicine. It's there, raw, in your face. Nor can it be fudged: this is not a moment to say one thing and mean another. A modicum of ambiguity over some issues might be helpful to those grieving, but it is generally a moment of looking for certainties to hang on to.

Today, I attended the funeral of J., about whom I blogged before Christmas. As befits a Christian funeral, it was full of hope, full of celebration of life, full of thanksgiving. I was struck by a few things while I was there: first, how seldom I find myself at funerals; second, how few people under the age of 50 were present (just a few close family members, and a couple of church folks); and so, third, how very rare it is for people outside the church community - my colleagues, for example - to go to a funeral, other than that of a close family member.

I've heard it said before that in our modern society, we are very much insulated from the realities of death and dying: I, for example, have never seen a dead body, in all my 40 years of life. But I think the truth goes further than that: with a few tragic exceptions, most people don't really encounter death very much. Many will be in their 30s before their grandparents die. Many will be in their 50s or even 60s before they start to find their friends dying.
For an emerging generation, as it were, death is almost unreal. (I guess that makes the death of a teenager, say, all the more traumatic. But I digress.)

But then this thought struck me: is it a valid one?: in former times, it was very natural to describe the gospel in terms of eternal consolation, in terms of repenting to receive eternal life. Death was all around: in close-knit communities with primitive medicine, the issue of "what happens when you die" surely came up a lot. Today, in the affluent West, life is different.

You can't say that the New Testament doesn't feature this aspect of the gospel: it's a major theme, of course. But it's not all. It's not a particularly large part of Christ's teaching. So it shouldn't come as a shock that many emerging writers tend to concentrate the on the gospel of the Kingdom, here and now, rather than upon hellfire and pearly gates. It's not about denying bible truth; it's not about ignoring eternal consolation; it is about getting a Christ-centred emphasis which strikes a chord and makes a difference for people celebrating life today.