Funerals and feasting

As a few of us solemnly gathered around the shrouded body of a church member who had just tragically taken his own life, I was asked, “Did you drive here in your van?” I thought it was an odd question considering the circumstances. Less than an hour later, I found myself driving that same van with a corpse wrapped in my old car blanket and a grieving widow sitting beside me in the front seat, numbly clutching her husband’s death certificate. This unusual scenario launched my initiation into performing my first funeral in Japan.

My immediate education began with assisting the undertaker in preparing the deceased’s body for burial. The body had to be washed, dressed, and the face even shaved as hair continues to grow for a while following death. Rigor mortis had already set in, which proved to be a problem as the casket was a bit small, requiring us to forcibly manipulate the limbs to ensure the body would fit.

While my attention was briefly diverted by a few important phone calls, a well-meaning Buddhist neighbor had convinced the deceased’s wife, who like her husband was a Christian, to surround her husband’s body with things that he would like to enjoy in the afterlife. Even though I was unfamiliar with such practices, this arrangement didn’t seem right.

A quick phone call to a local Japanese pastor confirmed my suspicions and gave me the confidence to persuade them to remove the objectionable items. Following this mini-confrontation, I was tasked with driving to the train station at 2:00 a.m. to meet the oldest son, who had just traveled from Tokyo to Hakodate on short notice. He was obviously in shock himself, and I did my best to comfort this grief-stricken man who had lost his father in unusual circumstances.

The next few days were a blur accompanied by minimal sleep as I undertook a crash course in Japanese funeral protocol and vocabulary, made countless funeral arrangements, prepared messages, and did my best to minister to grieving family and church members. I was totally spent and emotionally depleted.

In the midst of these frenetic preparations, I tried vainly to understand why a mature believer would end his life by drinking weed killer to protest a government injustice associated with his occupation. Embarrassed by the circumstances, high government officials also got involved and voiced strong reservations to the idea of holding a Christian funeral, further complicating matters and further raising already high stress levels.

As a young and inexperienced missionary, I felt overwhelmed by the events swirling around me. On top of that, I was utterly exhausted and shattered by my own grief. There was little time to organize the chaos and even less time to process the heartache all of us felt. As I struggled to pull my thoughts together in the middle of the night for a message that would somehow convey hope in the face of so much loss, God led me to a Bible verse I had not known before. In Ecclesiastes 7:2, Solomon, the author of the book and the wisest man who ever lived, advised,

“It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart” (NIV).

I lived in the house of mourning during those dark, distressing days. I mourned the loss of a member of my church plant who was under my care. I mourned my inadequacies as a missionary. I mourned my inability to comfort family and church members. I mourned my own sinfulness as I grappled with the nature of evil and its hold on areas in my own heart.

If granted a choice, I would have greatly preferred to linger in the house of feasting. But while I was forced to temporarily reside in the house of mourning, God spoke in powerful ways to me.

Alone with my thoughts, I was forced to recognize that we routinely live our lives trying to ignore the inevitability of death and its cold reality. We dress it up when forced to confront it at funerals. In our daily lives, we do our best to minimize death and pretend it isn’t there, though it is always waiting for us, unseen around the corner. Some go out of their way to redefine death and attempt to tame it with New Age sentiment and terminology.

But Solomon would have none of that. He saw immense value in visiting the house of mourning in contrast to the house of feasting. For it is only when we come within proximity of death that we are able to gain a healthy perspective of eternity. On such visits, we are also given a glimpse of God’s heavenly purpose in whatever days he has allotted for us.

In the midst of my personal storm, the confusion and sadness somehow melted away in a few quiet moments as I pondered that verse. Those incredibly stressful days became a precious time when I was granted the unique opportunity to reflect on the deeper things of God and this life.

In the midst of my sorrow and exhaustion, with many undone items still vying for attention, I sat by myself in our living room with the lights off, too tired to sleep. It was while I was in my own house of mourning that God graciously ministered to me through a song by Twila Paris called “Prince of Peace.” The lyrics spoke to the depths of my soul and strengthened me greatly in my moment of weakness.

There is no hope for a world that denies You
Firmly believing a lie
Hiding the hearts while the minds analyze You
Cleverly choosing to die
Maker of All, we kneel interceding
Fighting for Your will
Father of Life, Your children are pleading still

Prince of Peace, come and reign
Set Your feet on the mountain top again
Take Your throne, rightful Lord
Prince of Peace, come and reign forevermore

Several hundred people gathered in the house of mourning in the following days as we held a wake, a funeral, a brief service at the crematorium, and then one final ceremony for interring the deceased’s ashes. Those in attendance did not hear the words of death and hopelessness normally associated with Buddhist funerals. Instead, many listened for the first time to words of life and hope in a totally unexpected context. We did not speak to the spirit of the deceased as practiced in Buddhist rituals. Rather, we worshiped the Living God, who brings light out of darkness and life out of death through the miracle of the cross.

While I had been reluctantly residing in the house of mourning those few days, I was once again able to feast on who God is, what he has done, and, most important of all, what he will someday do. Death will one day cease to reign. Sin will no longer have dominion over us when the Prince of Peace returns to take his rightful place upon the throne.

While death and the many hardships of our present lives remain our immediate destiny in a broken world, an eternal feast ultimately awaits us. It took a brief visit to the house of mourning to be reminded of these important truths.