In Memoriam

In his eulogistic poem In Memoriam, Alfred, Lord Tennyson shares both his faith and his grief in writing about the death of his friend Arthur Hallam. Here are but a sampling of the poet’s thoughts taken from this epic poem:

We have but faith: we cannot know,
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness; let it grow.
...
Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair,
I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.
...
Whereof the man that with me trod
This planet was a nobler type
Appearing ere the times were ripe,
That friend of mine who lives in God.
...
That God, which ever lives and loves
One God, one law, one element,
And one far off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves.

I have a friend who asked me to do a reflection on the subject of memorial services in general and within the Presbyterian tradition in particular. In opening up this subject, I think I would begin by saying that memorial services are – or can be – a tremendous help to the deceased person’s family. And family includes both the nuclear and the faith family. It is important for the nuclear family to have an opportunity to express their grief and their closure in a private manner, but it is also important for the faith family to have that opportunity as well. Oftentimes, sons and daughters, even spouses, have no clue as to how the one who has died touched the lives of people around them, both within their faith community but also the larger community as well. All of us need the opportunity to share grief, love, thanksgiving, and memories in some form of corporate memorial service. If you read one of my earlier blogs, you will see where I wrote of the Celtic understanding of “thin places” where the spiritual and material brush up against each other. A memorial service, properly done, can be one of those kind of experiences. As I re-read Tennyson’s In Memoriam in preparation for this posting, I felt the resonance between the spiritual and the material; between the grief of loss and the gladness of renewal and spiritual fulfillment.

The pastor's job at the memorial service is not merely to expound the Word, but also to express the feelings and thoughts of people who are too numb or too afraid to name them—to express the swirling hopes and fears of grieving hearts. The preacher needs to be both the voice of God and the voice of the people, and this is an exceedingly demanding and delicate task.

Like all Christian worship, the memorial service has both a vertical and a horizontal dimension. We come to a memorial service, or a funeral, to pay our respects to a loved one, a colleague, a friend. At the same time we come to give thanks to God through whom all blessings flow. Memorial services are public rituals in which profound grief is expressed, precious memories are rehearsed, and lifetimes are thankfully remembered.

But at the memorial service we also want and need to believe. When someone we love dies, our response as Christians emerges, at least in part, out of our faith. We believe that God is the creator and giver of all life, and that death is, in some sense, an intrusion into the goodness of God's creation. We also believe that Christ redeems us from sin and death by his cross and resurrection, and that therefore death ushers us into fuller life. The memorial service affirms and celebrates these bracing realities of faith even under the shadow of death. Here we listen to the death-defying words of Scripture, we sing of God's grace and of Christ's victory, and we place our loved one's life in God's loving arms.

David Adam, a vicar at Lindisfarne, and another keeper of the Celtic flame, has a poem that could easily be a part of a Reformed (Presbyterian) memorial service for one who has tried to walk by faith and not by sight, and I close this posting with his words:

The Weaver
I weave unto my life this day, the presence of God upon my way,
I weave into my life this hour the mighty God and all his power.
I weave into my sore distress his peace and calm and no less.
I weave into my step so lame healing and helping in his name.
I weave into the darkest night strands of God shining bright.
I weave into each deed done joy and hope to the Risen Son.