A Living Funeral – A Living Sacrifice

Synopsis: There’s a new kind of funeral that is beginning to be used by those facing death. It’s called a “living funeral” or a “pre-funeral.” In this kind of funeral the “dearly departed” is still alive and is present at the ceremony. This kind of service become very popular in Japan and is beginning to appeal to folks in U.S. states where many retirees live (such as Florida). In this particular “pre-funeral” one of our church’s previous preachers has contracted incurable throat cancer and has been given just a few weeks to live. Knowing that, he developed the service he wanted done, planned the songs to be sung, and told me what he wanted the sermon to focus on. And when all was said and done… he would have a few parting comments. The following is the sermon I preached for his service:

A man was walking down a street when he stopped at a store window that had a beautiful painting of the crucifixion of Christ. It was such a powerful portrayal of the event that he just stood there for longest time gazing at the work of art. Then he became aware that there was a little boy standing next to him looking at the same painting. The man patted the child on the head, pointed to the painting and said, “Son, do you know what that’s all about?” The little boy said, “Yeah. That man there … that’s Jesus; an’ the woman that’s crying… that’s His mother; an’ them others… those are Roman soldiers. And they killed Jesus.”

The man was touched by the intensity of the boy’s reply, and smiled to himself as he began to walk away. But after a few moments he heard the child running up behind him. The boy was all out of breath, and he said, “Mister, mister, I forgot to tell you … he didn’t stay dead.”

Hebrews 10:10 tells us “…we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Jesus was our sacrifice. In the Bible, a sacrifice was when something dies for a person’s sins. And that’s what Jesus did for us. Jesus became our sacrifice when He died on the cross for our sins.

But the Bible says: Jesus didn’t stay dead. As the old Gospel hymn says: (Sing) “I serve a risen Savior, He’s in the world today. I know that He is living, whatever men may say. I see His hand of mercy; I hear His voice of cheer; And just the time I need Him, He’s always near. (Chorus) He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today! He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way. He lives, He lives, salvation to impart! You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.”

We serve a risen savior. He died FOR us, but now He lives WITH us. And He lives with us to walk with us and talk with us and even to intercedes for us (before God’s throne). You could literally say… Jesus has become our living sacrifice.

A living sacrifice? Where have we heard that before? Well, that’s what Romans 12:1 said: “I appeal to you brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a LIVING SACRIFICE, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” God said we Christians should become a living sacrifice.

Now this is John’s funeral. He’s still alive, he’s here with us, and in a few moments he’ll have some things to say to us… but it’s his funeral. And believe it or not, John died a long, long time ago. But he didn’t stay dead. He rose up out of a watery grave to be LIVING SACRIFICE for Jesus.

Romans 6 says “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were BAPTIZED INTO HIS DEATH? (we died) We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Walk in newness of life - what does that mean? Well, it means we died to our past and we’ve risen from that grave to live for Jesus to be a Living Sacrifice for Him! It means that (as Christians) we are to submit our bodies to God and we should view everything we are and everything we possess as belonging to God.

Being a living sacrifice is what Christians – who love Jesus – should strive to be, because we know we’ll never be righteous enough to buy our way into heaven. All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We can’t be good enough to be good enough to be assured of an eternity with God. I mean, if we could do that (be good enough) – it would be our own self-righteousness would get us into the gates and God couldn’t keep us out if He wanted to. We would have earned our place in the heavenly choir and nothing God could do would deny us entrance.