I love life. I'm thankful for the one I've been given. I'm thankful for my wife and my children and that God created them, knit them, and formed them.
I am all for celebrating the lives that God has created and giving Him glory for all that He and His creative hands can accomplish.
But when these people die, because of the sin both possessed in their nature and performed by their choices, they are dead. The curse is real and we all will one day bear the weight of our first Father Adam.
It is worth noting that a funeral on behalf of a Christian brother or sister who has fallen asleep is a celebration of Christ and the fact that our loved one is now with Him.
I believe in celebration of life and even the idea of having a celebration of life event. But NOT at the expense of a funeral. My fear is that in performing celebration of life ceremonies the funeral aspect may be lost altogether or replaced.
I guess my primary concern in broaching the subject was to create the categories that would place a celebration of life ceremony and a funeral in different categories with different purposes. As long as both categories are addressed in the context for which they are Biblical, I see no reason to flesh this out any further.
I half-suspect a good deal of the inertia behind celebration of life ceremonies is this idea that Christians ought always be happy and that we aren't Christian if we are depressed, sad, or mourning.
Do not attempt to out-Christian Christ.
i agree that an appropriate funeral can include both celebrating their life and mourning their death. in fact, i would hope nothing less for my own funeral...i would HOPE people would be a little sad i was gone. but our entertainment-, self fulfillment-, personal happiness-driven culture is so averse to feeling anything remotely close to mourning that i really do think the 'celebration of life' thing is just a direct result of needing to make everything a form of feel-good entertainment (as morbid as it is to imply about a funeral).
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