Weddings and Funerals

I have officiated many weddings and conducted many funerals and wakes. This is a responsibility and also a privilege that I have as a pastor. While these events are poles apart in terms of the emotions involved, both can have positive e­ffects on our lives. Sometimes we can be attending them simply out of obligation or concern, but pause for a while and consider their implications. My life is enriched as I am always reminded of my own mortality and the importance of my marriage and family.

Consider the day one gets married. Life is full of excitement and possibilities. Yet the moment we step into it, we realize how different we are from our spouse. The very thing that attracted us to each other can be the very thing that tries to split us apart later. Before marriage, a man wants a wife who can converse with him intelligently. After marriage, why does she always have an opinion about things? Before marriage, a woman wants a man who is financially stable to provide for her and the family. After marriage, why is he never home? The honeymoon period dissolves quickly and reality hits when they stay together. At a recent Fathers Club meeting, a newly married young man humorously exclaimed, “We wanted to kill each other in the first three months of our marriage!”

In the grandeur of a wedding day, I am reminded that it is not how well the couple starts but how well they will finish someday.  A significant milestone for a marriage will be the wedding day of the couple’s children. Each wedding is also in some sense a graduation ceremony for the parents. A beautiful part of a DUMC wedding is the time given for the newly wedded couple to express their gratitude and love to their parents. Whether the sharing is one minute or three minutes, you can almost get an idea what their family relationships is like.

There will always be tears. The fathers will inevitably try very hard not to be emotional, faces contorting to keep their tears back, while mothers of course will let their tears run freely. The same can be said about wedding dinner speeches. I often wonder what it would be like as a father on the big day watching his son or daughter now leaving home for good to forge a different life with his or her new partner. We can never go back to where we were before with them. We cannot wind back the clock. These are powerful and tearful moments. I have often read in-between the lines of their speeches, of regrets or joy.

It reminds us as parents to have strong marriages for the sake of our children because that’s the only consistent model of marriage they will see in their growing years. The best commendation I have heard was when a groom said in his wedding speech that the reason why he wanted to get married early was because he longed for what he saw in his parent’s marriage. He did not want to miss out any longer when he met the girl of his dream. What a powerful testament and model of marriage and parenting the groom’s parents have been for the young couple! I left that wedding feeling inspired knowing that my strong marriage with my wife matters to our three sons. We must therefore work hard at staying joyfully married! We have just celebrated our 24 years of marriage!

In the sorrow of a funeral, one will also see the strength of the family relationships or the lack of it. The regrets or joys in the words of a dying person can be haunting or inspiring. I have held the hands of people in their last moments. I consider my presence with them a privilege because their last words, with life ebbing away from their earthly existence, are worth taking note of. Family relationships are at the top of their mind. The fear or confidence in facing their deaths reminds me about my own confidence in God. When I take my final breath, all that matters will be my relationship with God. My confidence in meeting my Maker will be a reflection of my journey with Him on earth.

I long to have what Apostle Paul has: Desiring to go, but willing to stay. ^"I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body." (Philippians 1:23-24) He longs for a far better place to go to where his Heavenly Father is, than to cling on here. But he is willing to stay because he knows of a higher purpose than himself so that many more can be brought from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of Light. That is why he can say, “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13b-14).

Do yourself a favor. The next time you attend a wedding or a funeral, pause for a moment to reflect about your life. What is God saying?

Have a great life!

Reflections:

1. Has your parents’ marriage been inspiring? In what ways?

2. What would you want to have in your own marriage from what you saw in them?

3. What would you avoid?

4. If you are married, how would you rate your marriage from 1 to 10?

5. Would you consider your marriage an inspiration to your children and others in your community?

6. What would your children say if they were asked questions 1 to 3? (Try asking them.)

7. What do you think your thoughts will be during your dying moments? What would you say to me if I am by your side at that moment?

8. Are you confident in meeting your Maker? Describe the reasons why in your own words.

9. How would you apply the attitude of Paul in your own life: “Desiring to go, but willing to stay?” (2 Corinthians 5:8)

10. What new attitudes would you adopt from now on when you attend a funeral, wake or wedding?

Forgive and Forget

We often hear about the need to "forgive and forget". This advice is an important one because the root of all problems in our life is the problem of unforgiveness. We don't get along 100% and no matter how "compatible" we are to another person, we will still find something that we do not share commonality with. This is the hallmark of relationship and we better get used to that idea.

I smile often when young courting couples come excitingly to me asking for the church to start pre-marital counselling with them. The naive dreamy-like way they go about their relationship suggest that they do not know each other well enough to realize that the biggest challenge to their relationship will come in the first two years of their marriage. Couples only really learn to love each other when they are married and staying together in the same house. The real test of their relationship comes when they find out how incompatible they are and still able to willingly adapt to each other's idiosyncrasies. 

The biblical standard of love is "agape". I love you not because of, but in spite of. Love often is not associated with the feeling of "liking" somebody. Love is not just a feeling. It is always a choice. That's real love. God loves us while we were still sinners. There's nothing good and nice about us, but He loves us anyway. That's why Jesus said to "love your enemies". It's obvious that we don't 'like' our enemies but to suggest that we must like them first would be a humanly impossible task. Thankfully we know loving and liking can be mutually exclusive as a start. Liking may come later but it is not a necessary prerequisite to start loving.

Just to test the theory, let's look at 1 Cor 13:4-8

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.

Notice that love is not a feeling word here. It is a "doing" word. We can do all these without the need to like. Liking may or may not come. It is not the end goal. Love is the end goal. It is like saying "joy" is more than "happiness" because the latter is dependent on circumstances while the former is in spite of circumstances.

Do a quick exercise now. Substitute the word "Love" above with your name and your role. For e.g. if you are a husband, then you can say "Chris as a husband is patient. Chris as a husband is kind. And so on." or "Chris as a father is patient. Chris as a father is kind." Apply this test to your different roles and you will be amazed how much or how little we are able to love others. Unforgiveness often reveals more about ourselves than we would like to admit. This can be an opportunity of great growth in our lives.

Let's come back to the point about "forgive and forget". The idea behind this phrase subtly suggests that we should feel okay about the person and it is possible to really mentally forget. Guilt sets upon our hearts if we still have the tinge of dislike. If that is the case, then we may have gotten it all wrong. We know we can never forget. Our brains are not like a hard disk where we can "clean wipe" the entire hardware without leaving any remnants of its memory that can be recovered later. Scientists suggest that we have short and long term memories. I would surmise that hurts in relationship would burn deep into our conscious and subconscious mind as long term memory which is impossible to erase.

So how does one forgive and forget? Let me first ask a question, how does one know he/she is healed from a pain. Imagine a cut on our arm. How do we know we are healed? We know we are healed when we press the wound and it is no longer painful. But we can still see the scar. It is there as a reminder of the cut but it doesn't bother us anymore. I believe to forgive and forget means that the wound does not bring anymore pain although the memory of it is still in technicolor. It's visually there but emotionally impervious. The forgetting part is not the memory of the event or person, but the part on the pain that we forget. We cannot recall the feeling of pain anymore.

I can relate to that. I can still recall various incidences when I was hurt. But thinking about them does not bring back the terrible pain that I went through then. It doesn't bother me anymore! In fact I can smile at them knowing the powerful lessons learnt. I now know I am totally healed. I can truly forgive and forget!

That's why the Scripture reminds us about not allowing the bitterness of our hearts to grow deep into our minds. 

Hebrews 12:14-15

14 Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

Forgiving and forgetting is a discipline that one must cultivate so that the roots of bitterness do not go too deep into our lives. Every gardener knows that when weeds are spotted, it is best to pull them out immediately before the roots go in too deep. If the roots are too deep in, every time we pull out the weeds, it will grow right back up from its root system. The writer of Hebrews have wisely counselled that unforgiveness is like weeds. Pull it out immediately!

Are there hurts and pains that you need to forgive and forget? Think about it, that you do not need to "like" but to make a choice today to think and do good to that person. If you are a Christian, pray for him or her for God's blessing. And do good to that person when opportunities arise. Such incidences often reveals the depravity of our own hearts, the inability to love as God would have us love. It won't be easy but we can lay our pains and hurts at the foot of the cross because He understands. Hebrews 4:14-16. I know it wouldn't be easy and praise God that we do not need to struggle through this alone.