Ray's comments

Non-Christian Memorials - Blog Entry

12 May 2007 10:00 AM

My Pastor did the funeral of a young man who by all reasonable accounts rejected Christ and the faith he was raised in. He was in college and spurning all counsel from his pastor and family to accept Christ. One night while driving drunk and angry at such reckless speeds that his friends demanded to be let out he fulfiled his apparant death wish and met his maker about a mile after letting them out. The pastor had the group sing a Psalm to open the funeral. The Psalm escapes me. Taking his account of the rich man and Lazarus (luke 16: 19-31)as an unspoken presuposition and tying it into a line that they had just sung in the Psalms he opend the eulogy with a claim to know that if this young man were to raise from this casket to speak to you "I know what he would say." Pointing at a particularly poignant line in the Psalm which they all had just sung, he suggested that the young man," knowing what he knows now", would plead with you all to heed the message of this line in this Psalm and the Gospels. There was not a dry eye in the room. The pastor spoke the truth and felt he comforted at the same time. There is no greater comfort than the Gospel as I think some have alluded to above. I think several classmates got saved. Excelent topic for discussion Melissa. Thanks.