As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Lutherans have some of the most beautiful and moving funeral services, not by what the Pastor says, but the Lutheran substance of the Law and the Gospel, which are the teachings in every Sunday worship, read before the Sermon.
Funerals are a release of all of the emotions to set the mourner at liberty. A funeral is the living's life review which the Presence of Christ in us, in the Holy Ghost brings us to the terms of love for those we bury.
It is at the graveside of Lutheran funerals when the words ring out, I Am the Resurrection and the Life, that the mourners affirm their Faith in Christ that as He lives, they will live too, when they go the way of the one they have committed to His care.
The following are perfect verses for a funeral in being a personal choice which being led by God, can never be improved upon.
PSALMS 73
23 Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.
24 Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.
ROMANS 8
30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.
34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I remember when my dad died, how the Pastor came out to discuss the service and as I recall all of the verses we chose, were rejected by him in a most abrupt manner, along with most of the songs. In thinking of the Viking's situation in his brother dying, the Holy Ghost explained that the Pastor only had sermons for the verses he wanted, so why go off script when the script is already written.
I am amused at that in writing that as it makes me laugh, at something which was a bit of an affront at the time to me personally.
Funerals are important for children in bringing the reality of life to them. They learn the process their parents experienced and that the grandparents taught them, in it is a family and friend relationship in the expression of all knowing, remembering and beginning the healing, whether across oceans in experience or in plots of American land.
The ministry of those in a new Life continues, It is God that justifieth.
It is always about God, first and last. Thankfully it is always about God in making things right. Even I needed to be ministered to that in all of those Living Words.
God bless you.
agtG
