letter from Japan
Last month, I spent an hour watching a body being prepared for its coffin. It was our oldest church member, Mrs S., who had died suddenly the previous week.
Her body was discreetly washed, her face made up, her hair styled and her favourite clothes put on. Her daughter told me she was glad to have someone who had known her mother there with her to watch and help.
In our church we ask people to write down their wish for a Christian funeral. Though it is changing, Buddhist funerals remain the norm here and a non-Christian family will often give even a Christian relative a Buddhist funeral – the family religion being decisive.
Buddhist funerals largely consist of prayers for, and to, the dead to help them to a better afterlife, and almost everything, from the direction of the coffin to the colours of cloths, has a meaning. Most funeral parlours have little experience of Christian funerals and it can be hard to ensure a clear witness to the Lord Jesus. However, praising God at a funeral, confidence that the deceased is safe with the Lord, and even a focus on comforting the family, are surprising to many, and become a powerful counter-cultural witness.
Mrs S. is the only believer in her family. They accepted her wish for a Christian funeral, but requested that, apart from me, it be family only. The priest at a Buddhist funeral may have never met the deceased, and the family seemed pleasantly surprised that I knew her well. During the service, I gave her testimony, and a Bible message from her favourite Bible verse ( John 14:6). Through this, four other ceremonies, and numerous conversations with the daughter, the family have had opportunities to hear about the hope we have in Christ. May the Lord have mercy on them.
The first time Mrs S. came to church she said to me: ‘I’m 86. I’ll probably die soon. Tell me what happens next.’ She came to trust in Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and now she is experiencing ‘what happens next’. Praise the Lord!
