Body-Less Funerals—For or Against?

Here’s a question: Should the deceased’s body be present at a funeral?

I just reviewed Thomas Long’s Accompany Them With Singing, a book on Christian funerals, for a class I’m taking. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t expecting much (just wasn’t in the mood to read an entire book on funerals).

But it’s really good.

Well-written and thought provoking, it’s what’s got me wondering about the answer to the question I started this post with.

Here’s the deal: Long criticizes the growing trend away from traditional funerals (with the body up front, etc) and toward “memorial services” that celebrate a person’s life/memory and are conducted with no body present. In short, he argues that the body is more than just a “shell”—it’s God-given and sacred. My body is an integral part of “me” and yours is an integral part of “you.”

Because of this, he says that having a funeral without a body is like having a wedding without a bride or a baptism without the person being baptized.

I think whether or not you agree with this depends on a couple of things: how you feel about the body’s place in “self,” and whether you feel a funeral should be more about a person’s life or a person’s death.

So let’s talk—what do you think: Does the actual body need to be present for the funeral to be good?

Tears, Fall

A couple of days ago, London looked out the window as she ate her peanut butter and jelly and said, “Leaves. Fall.”

I looked out and saw the wind pulling the yellowed leaves from the maple tree in our backyard. “Yes,” I said. “The leaves are falling off the tree.”

London pursed her lips and pushed her eyebrows down. Then she looked at me and said, “Sad.”

Evidently, God wires human beings to mourn endings. We hate goodbyes, we savor the last few pages of a great book, we cry at funerals. Even a not-quite-two-year-old instinctively grieves the expiration of a leaf.

Endings are sad.

Perhaps that’s why heaven has none. Tearless eyes…forever. Joyous hearts…without fail. Full-out praise…eternally. Face-to-face contact with God…uninterrupted.

None of it stops.

Nothing good ends.

I can’t wait for that to begin.