“How can Christians sing at funerals?!” someone once asked me.
Death is terrible. God designed us to grieve. The tears flow for our deceased loved ones.
But death need not be viewed as tragedy if we know there is another chapter beyond this life in God’s grand, redemptive story.
Christians, in this way, can yet smile in the face of death and send loved ones out with singing because they know their hope is not in vain and, one day, their faith will be sight.
So the apostle Paul wrote, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21)
What if every Sunday were a funeral? So it may likely have been in the first-century AD. Consider that during the time of the Roman Empire some 40-45 percent of children aged 14-15 had lost their father. Aristotle famously said that “most children die before the seventh day” (Historia animalium 588a8).
According to one study of Roman life expectancy, it was 21 at birth but doubled to 42 by the age of 5.
Imagine if every person 43 years or older was gone in your church and family. Even harsher, the life-expectancy for Christians in the first-century may have been as low as 35 years due to persecution. Death was in their face every day. Multiple funerals may have been held each week of the year.
Yet Christians led their dead out with singing and buried them in the ground… in the hope of the resurrection of the righteous unto glory.
Maybe the last 2 years are giving us a taste of life in the first or second century?
How may this reality transform the way you read, interpret, and apply the New Testament?
I know it’s changing my reading of nearly every page.
In Christ Alone,
P.S.
For a quick yet rich read on the Christian hope of our bodily resurrection, I encourage you to read my friend, Dr. Michael Svigel’s article, “Don’t Walk on Those Graves!”: The Christian View of the Resurrection. (Click here)
