Christian Funerals Are Creepy Because They Focus on Jesus Not the Deceased Fact Check

Christian beliefs about life after death are based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. ... There are many different elements of the Christian funeral service which reflect the different Christian beliefs about the afterlife.

A funeral is held for friends and family to grieve for the person who has died and give thanks for their life. If someone is on their deathbed, a minister will prepare them for death. This is most likely after a long period of illness. Prayers of preparation and reconciliation may be said, with only the minister in the room. Family and friends can participate in the Lord's Prayer, the Word of God and Holy Communion. Often, the deceased will have left information in his/her will concerning what they want to be included in the funeral service (hymns, prayers) and will also say whether they wanted to be buried or cremated.

As Vanderwell conducts them, the final stage of a funeral or memorial service focuses on celebration. Though these services certainly speak to the life and death of a specific person, the celebration is about what God has done, not what the deceased has done. “In this stage we celebrate our ...

A funeral sermon should not exceed 20 minutes and should highlight these three categories, preferably expounded from a text(s) of Scripture: The story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11) is particularly helpful, as there seems to be a legitimate time of grieving for those present and sorrow for those who are experiencing the separation that death brings, including Jesus who wept (John 11:35).

The Christian funeral itself, as a dramatic act, symbolizes the completion of baptism for the one who has died. At the beginning of the Christian life, this person was washed and anointed in baptism, and, now at the end, the body is washed and anointed at death.

For example, Catholic sermons from the study period are more likely than others to contain the word “paschal,” which refers to Easter and to what the Catholic Catechism calls the “paschal mystery” of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. Certain expressions may be distinctive to the sermons of a particular Christian tradition but not especially common even within that tradition.

The AUC Ministerial Association is comprised of over 500 pastors and chaplains, 2000 elders and 320 retired pastors who serve in the incredible diversity of ministry roles across our Union. The aim of the AUC Ministerial Association is to have the most spirit-filled, equipped, inspired team ...

It is this “Jesus” that mourners at funerals routinely hear about. It is the followers of this “Jesus” who ignorantly deny the bereaved from hearing words of the true gospel—the good news of the coming kingdom of God. Our comprehensive book The True Jesus Christ – Unknown to Christianity addresses the popular false images of Christ:

This kind of biblical thinking is largely absent from our funerals. We tell our children as they pass by the corpse, “That’s not Grandma; Grandma is with Jesus.” But that’s not true. It is Grandma as much as her soul is Grandma, neither one perfectly Grandma. Her corpse looks wrong and disturbing because her body is dead, separated from her soul. But when Jesus returns, it is that very corpse which will rise up, made new, reunited with her soul. Even more telling, Christians are increasingly turning to cremation.