Nothing cooled my ardor for service so much, nothing so quenched my impulse to “fight the good fight” as the need to preach at funerals….
I did not sleep for days and nights, being in the struggle.
And the problem was not only WHAT to say, but also HOW to say it. If, for example, there is an upswing in my life, if I am full of energy and vigor, how can I enter into the suffering and pain of other people? Who am I to try to reflect in my sermon the pain of loss experienced by a grief-stricken family? Will I be able to find the right words to adequately honor the deceased? But one day, while I was preaching at my father's funeral, God revealed some truths to me in this context - not only as a preacher, but also as a member of a grieving family.
Of course, preaching at a funeral should not be superficial or frivolous. We need great support from the Holy Spirit to encourage us. We must ask God for help, but this does not change our responsibility to choose our words carefully and carefully. People crushed by grief are very vulnerable, so our words can have a tremendous impact on them. Thus, our speech at a funeral should be thoughtful and wise.
I would like to offer you five tips on what to avoid if you are invited to preach at a funeral.
Don't talk about the deceased only in the past tense.
One of the duties of the preacher at a funeral is to glorify the Lord by testifying how the deceased brother (deceased sister) loved Him, how he lived for His glory. However, when describing the pious life of the deceased, we sometimes talk so much about “what was” that we forget to mention “what is.” If we believe that the deceased is now with Christ, that he is alive in the afterlife, then it is necessary to emphasize this when speaking about him in the present and future tenses. In this way we will remind the grieving family and other listeners of the hope of the gospel.
Soul after death
Christian knowledge about the state of the soul after the death of a person is formed from Church Tradition. In many ways, these ideas are a symbolic interpretation of the events after the Savior’s death on the cross.
Once separated from the body, the soul becomes free. In the first days, she can visit places dear to her during her earthly life. On the third day - worship of God as the Creator. Therefore, they try to bury the deceased on the third day. At this time, the first church service for the deceased is performed over his body - the funeral service. This funeral service shows concern for the believer. Orthodox believe that the soul of the deceased is present during this service.
“When on the third day there is an offering in the church, the soul of the deceased receives from the Angel guarding it relief from the grief that it feels from separation from the body, it receives because the praise and offering in the Church of God were made for it, which is why good hope is born in it. For for two days the soul, together with the Angels who are with it, is allowed to walk on the earth wherever it wants.
Therefore, the soul that loves the body sometimes wanders near the house in which it was separated from the body, sometimes near the coffin in which the body is laid; and thus spends two days like a bird, looking for nests for itself. And a virtuous soul walks through those places in which it used to do the truth. On the third day, He who rose from the dead commands, in imitation of His resurrection, every Christian soul to ascend into heaven to worship the God of all” (St. Macarius of Alexandria, 4th century).
On the 40th day there is a private trial. The final decision about whether to stay in heaven or hell awaits the soul after the Second Coming of Christ.
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory, and all nations will be gathered before Him; and will separate one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right hand, and the goats on His left” (Gospel of Matthew, 25:31-33).
Don't ignore the fact of loss.
There are always those around us who have experienced bereavement. By loss I mean not only those who lie in the coffin, but also those who are dead in their sins. The loss of people close to us reminds us that death is a fact of life, that one day we will all pass on to another world. If there is a perfect place to preach about the seriousness of sin and the importance of God's grace, it is near the body of a deceased saint, facing the reality of death. Entreat those present to repent so that they can then enjoy eternal life in Christ. At such moments, the deceased saint is “more alive than all the living,” he is more alive than one can imagine, he is in the presence of the One who Himself is life.
Death as the beginning of eternity
Orthodoxy teaches that after death a person does not cease to exist. The soul created by God is immortal. But as a consequence of the sin committed, the transgression of the Creator’s commandments, the human body undergoes decay (Genesis 3:19). Christians believe in the future general resurrection of the dead. And the funeral service for the deceased is filled with this thought. This hope is reflected in the Creed adopted at the First and Second Ecumenical Councils (4th century): “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come.”
Funeral service for the deceased in the temple
These words, pronounced by believers every day (the Creed is included in the morning prayer rule), do not allow one to fall into boundless and inconsolable grief when losing loved ones. Earthly life is perceived as preparation for a future eternity. And this preparation ends with death.
“What is death? Death is not a coffin at all, not a canopy, not a black bandage on an arm, not a grave in clay. Death is when the sprout of our life crawls out to the surface of the earth and stands under the direct rays of God's sun. The grain of life must die and germinate here, in the earth. This is the so-called “birth in the spirit” in the Gospel, the “second birth” of a person. The death of the body is the leaving of a sprout of the earth, an exit from the earth. Any person who has received even the smallest spiritual leaven, even the most insignificant gospel pearl “inside himself,” will not face death at all, and even far from death” (Archbishop John Shakhovskoy, 1902-1989).
Remember to point out the reality of heaven—proclaim that reality.
The church needs to hear preaching about our heavenly home and study this topic from the Scriptures. Insufficient attention to this topic exposes the weakness of our faith, hope and joy. God's dear child, deceased, now enjoys God and all the riches of the heavenly Kingdom. We must, as often as possible, at least for a few minutes, tear people out of the earthly reality of “now and now” - a reality that dries up our spiritual joy - and raise them above the earth so that they have the opportunity to see everything from the point of view of God and eternity. Remind those present that Christians are always surrounded by God's grace, that heaven awaits them - only heaven.
John Pond, student pastor at West Jackson Baptist Church (Jackson, Tennessee)
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Optina Pustyn
They tell this parable. One priest reposed and found himself before the gates of heaven. In front of the gate is the Apostle Peter with the keys, who tells the priest: “In order to enter heaven, you need to score 1000 points.” The priest is perplexed: “What glasses?” “Name your good deeds,” says the apostle. Father calls: “I built a temple.” “Okay, 2 points,” answers the Apostle Peter. “I raised my children in the faith,” says the priest. “Okay, that’s 2 more points,” the apostle replies. “I cared for my parishioners, taught them the commandments of God, and prayed for them.” “Okay,” the apostle answers, “for that, 4 more points.” Father realized that there was no way for him to score 1000 points and prayed: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner, I have done nothing in Your sight.” “But for this there are 992 points,” said the Apostle Peter and opened the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven.
There is not much that needs to be done to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, there is not much that needs to be created. The path to the Kingdom of Heaven is simple and straight. This path is narrow, but it is simple and straight. But how difficult it is for a person to follow this straight and simple path in order to appear before the Lord at the end of the path.
Today, on this Saturday, the Church has established a special commemoration of the departed. On such days we try to remember death.
Death is very majestic and mysterious. The Holy Church tells us a lot about death and preparation for it. We, Orthodox Christians, are armed with all the necessary information about this issue. But this information still remains a theory, since in practice we encounter death only once.
Death crowns life, any life of any person. But we will probably still be surprised when we meet her. The life of a Christian should be a preparation for this always unexpected but inevitable meeting.
Once upon a time I came across an excerpt from a pre-revolutionary Russian grammar textbook. This excerpt contained the simplest and most obvious expressions by which children learned to read and write: “Oak is a tree. Rose is a flower. Deer is an animal. Sparrow is a bird. Russia is our fatherland. Death is inevitable." In this children's textbook, among the simple expressions that any child could understand, there was this: “death is inevitable.” This was possible then, in that still Orthodox Russia. Now such information is not in textbooks. Although how important it is for someone starting their life to know what will be the result, the crown of life - to know that “death is inevitable.”
The inevitability of death frightens many people. But for a Christian, the inevitability of death inspires and imparts the meaning of his spiritual life. The inevitability of death tells the Christian about the inevitability of his meeting with the Lord. It is in death that, mysteriously for us, that which every soul yearns for, whether consciously or unknown to itself, takes place—a meeting with the Living God, the Father, takes place.
Parting with this world for a passionate person living in sin is always pain and horror. Because his soul is attached to earthly goods, pleasures and pleasures and is torn away from this world with pain and horror. “The death of a sinner is cruel,” says Scripture. On the contrary, a person who has already strived here for the Heavenly leaves this world easily. His death is like a dream, a dormition. The saints compared earthly life to prison, and death to liberation.
Death is not disappearance. This is a transition from one state to another. For the righteous, this will be a state of heavenly bliss. For unrepentant sinners, this is a world of hell, melancholy and God-forsakenness. F. M. Dostoevsky said that hell can be defined in two words: “Too late.” This is scary, but outside of our earthly sphere it will be impossible to change anything. The soul of a person will leave the world into eternity, into the eternity that it deserves, into which it is capable of entering. In our earthly life, every word, deed, and innermost thought are seeds that will sprout in eternity. What we sow here, we will reap there.
The Lord in the Gospel, in the passage that was read now at the Liturgy, says: “He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has eternal life” (John 5:24).
Every person, every soul, consciously or unconsciously, strives for God, for eternal life, has a longing for eternity. Man initially, after creation, had the ability to know and understand the will of God, to understand what pleasing God and worshiping God consisted of. The Lord directly communicated His commandments to the first people. But after the fall of our ancestors, people stopped understanding the will of God and stopped hearing the Voice of God.
Now the path of natural pleasing to God has become impossible. Every person has a longing for eternity, has a desire for eternity, but sinful human nature can express this desire in the most bizarre, sometimes terrible manifestations. Hence the terrible heresies, sects, hence communism, as the desire to build the Kingdom of Heaven without God. In order for a person to find this true path and ascend to God in his life, the Lord gave the Book of Life, the Holy Scriptures. Therefore, “he who hears My Word has eternal life.”
Our life is also a book, a sealed book. Here on Earth, we can read only the first few pages, but the rest we will see and read only in eternity. As the Apostle Paul says: “Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12).
Death is a curse, it is the punishment of fallen man after the Fall. Victory over death occurred in the Resurrection of Christ. “If we died with Christ, we will also live with Him,” says Scripture (2 Tim. 2:11). And now we celebrate these days of Great Lent, difficult and burdensome days of Lent for many, in order to celebrate the Bright Resurrection of Christ. We must put in work and effort, penitential Lenten work, in order to become participants in this holiday, the Lord's Table, Easter.
So our life is this path in the land of exile; we must go beyond it to enter into the joy of the Lord, to enter into Eternal Pascha, into the never-ending day of Resurrection.
“How good it is to face death with prayer!” - says the Monk Ambrose of Optina. How to spend a good life with prayer - I would like to add. The Lord gave us this opportunity - to spend our lives striving for Him, and to meet death with His Name on our lips. The Lord led us and put us on this path of salvation. He gave us the True Holy Church - this ship of salvation. He gave us the Holy Scriptures, in which he communicated His will, His commandments. The great gift of God is the sacraments, the saving power of which every Christian has comprehended. The Lord gave us mentors, His saints, both those who have gone into eternity and those who live among us, so that we can hear the living word of salvation.
Let us follow this simple and direct path, the path of faith and pleasing God, the path of overcoming death, the path to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Hieromonk Simeon (Kulagin)
June 6, 2014
Why do they perform funeral services for the dead?
What is a funeral service for a deceased person? Why is it needed?
The funeral service for the deceased in Orthodoxy is called the Rite of Burial. This is a special service that is performed once over the body of the deceased. On the one hand, it is designed to ease the grief and grief of loved ones gathered at the coffin, to calm their souls, and to soothe the sadness of separation. On the other hand, it is an intense prayer for the soul of the deceased. At the funeral service, the priest reads a prayer of permission. It contains a request for forgiveness of the deceased’s sins, for which repentance was brought in confession during life.
The author of this prayer is considered to be the Monk Theodosius of Pechersk (11th century). The prayer of permission is read only once, during the funeral service. In this way, this service differs from a memorial service (a funeral service that can be performed an unlimited number of times).
In the Orthodox Church, there are 5 types of funeral services: for lay people, monastics, priests (including bishops), children under 7 years of age, and also for the first week after Easter (Bright Week).
Burial in ancient times
In Old Testament times, death was always a tragedy. Funeral preparations in those days were much the same as they remain today. The eyes of the deceased were closed, the body was washed and wrapped in a piece of cloth. In hot climates, funerals had to be carried out as quickly as possible. The body without a coffin was carried to the burial place on a wooden stretcher. Relatives and friends of the deceased sobbed, lamented, sprinkled ashes on their heads, tore their clothes, shaved off their beards and walked barefoot as a sign of grief (this was a tradition and a cry of the soul).
Sometimes the voices of specially hired professional mourners joined the general lamentations. Mourning usually lasted seven days, and in special cases longer (for example: Moses was mourned for thirty days). Mourning was accompanied by fasting, but on the day of the funeral a funeral feast was held, which sometimes took place right at the grave. In countries neighboring Israel, primarily Egypt, the body was sometimes embalmed. The entrails and brain were removed and the body was filled with resinous mastic.
The Israelites often buried their dead in caves. Some caves could accommodate all family members (Gen. 50:13), and if the need arose, they were expanded. Corridors with shelves along the walls were cut out of the rocks, and the bodies of the deceased were placed on these shelves.
Rich people were buried in crypts carved into the rocks. A narrow staircase led to the burial chamber deep in the rock. The entrance hole was blocked with a stone slab or boulder. In New Testament times, in order to facilitate the movement of the “door” stone, it was sometimes placed in a specially hollowed out groove. The number of caves, even artificial ones, was, of course, limited. Therefore, when only the skeleton remained of the corpse, the bones were collected and placed in a wooden or stone chest called an “ossuary.”
How is all this known? From the Bible, as well as from sciences called Archeology and History.
The poor were buried in shallow graves on level ground. The body was covered with stones and covered with earth. A stone slab was placed on top. All graves were whitewashed so that they were clearly visible. Any contact with a dead body made a person ritually “unclean” (at least in the Israeli religion).
Here are some passages from the Bible that reflect customs associated with death and funerals;
Gen 23, Gen 48:1-7, Gen 49:29-33, Gen 50:1-26, Deut 34:5-8, Deut 14:1-2, 2 Kings 1:9-12, 2 Kings 3 :28-37, Jer 9:17-22, Jer 16:5-7, Matt 9:23-24, Matt. 8:21 - 22, Matthew 16:1-6, Luke 7:11-15, John 11: 17-57
How does the funeral service of a deceased layman take place?
Previously, the funeral service for the deceased took place only in church. In the 20th century, in order not to attract the attention of the Soviet authorities, this funeral service began to be performed at home. This practice has continued to this day. However, it is still more correct to serve the funeral rite in the temple.
The coffin with the deceased is brought into the church and placed in the center in front of the Royal Doors. It is positioned so that the feet of the deceased are facing the iconostasis. Then the deceased’s face is turned towards the altar, like all those praying. It is typical for the Orthodox Church to keep the coffin open. Catholics do not do this.
The body of the deceased is covered with a special funeral blanket. This is a symbol of the covering of Christ. An icon of the Savior (for men) or the Mother of God (for women) is placed on the chest of the deceased. The believer is not buried with it (the icon is taken home). As a sign that the deceased was a faithful Christian, a cross is placed in the left hand. A “corolla” is put on the forehead - a ribbon with the words “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.”
Lighted candles for those present at the funeral service are a symbol of ardent love for the deceased.
The church hymns of the burial rite speak about the temporality of earthly existence, about its perishability. But they also remind us of the resurrection of the dead. The Gospel text read at this time testifies to God's righteous judgment (Gospel of John, 5:24-30). The prayers contain a request to open the doors of heaven for the soul of the deceased and to grant her peace. At the end of the burial ceremony, the priest reads a prayer of permission. Then the scroll with this prayer is placed in the right hand of the deceased. This is a sign of forgiveness of sins and reconciliation of a person with the Lord.
Funeral service for the deceased as a special service
The appearance of funeral prayers dates back to the very beginning of the history of Christianity. Then the burial of believers took place at night. Christians could not bury their dead openly and in daylight because of the persecution brought against the Church. Subsequently, the burial rite was separated from the all-night service.
The funeral service can be performed for any baptized person. The only exceptions are suicides who voluntarily deprived themselves of the Divine gift of life, which is a grave sin.
The spiritual meaning of performing a funeral service is to pray together for the soul of the deceased. Relatives and relatives ask the Lord for forgiveness of the sins they have committed.
“When we stand and pray for the deceased, we are actually saying: “Lord, this person did not live in vain. He left an example and love on earth; example we will follow; love never dies". By proclaiming before God our undying love for the deceased, we affirm this person not only in time, but also in eternity. Our lives can be his redemption and his glory.
We can live, embodying with our lives everything that was significant, lofty, genuine in him, so that someday, when the time comes for us and all humanity to stand before God, we will be able to bring to the Lord all the fruits, the entire harvest of seeds, sown by his example, by his life, which sprouted and bore fruit thanks to our undying love, and say to the Lord: “Take this from me; it belongs to him, to her: I am only a field; he was a sower! His example, his word, his personality were like a seed thrown into the soil, and this fruit belongs to him” (Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh).
