We all have our favourite hymns. I have my list of favourites, my funeral list
you could say, the songs I want played at my funeral. I would like my funeral to start with “I Sing
the Almighty Power of God” sung to a tune that I wrote for it. I should probably record it so that the
musicians will know it and don’t play it to the tune of Forest Green which
works for “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, but not so much for “I Sing the
Almighty Power of God”. I am moved by
the last two lines of that hymn: “While all that borrows life from Thee is ever
in Thy care, and everywhere that I could be, Thou, God, art present
there.”
Next I would have everybody sing, “Praise to the
Lord, the Almighty” the way my friend and contemporary Christian artist Glen
Soderholm does it. The melody is the
same as in our hymnals, but I like his accompaniment. I have found the end of verse two to be
always the case and a helpful reminder.
“Have you not seen how your heart’s wishes have been granted through
God’s kind ordaining?” I would next have
everybody sing “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” to the tune of
Nettleton. To me that hymn most
adequately describes what it is to be human before a gracious God. We are “prone to wander” yet God tunes our
hearts to sing his praise.
I would also have a couple of Christmas hymns at my
funeral. “Come, Thou Long-expected
Jesus” to the tune of Hyfrydol. That’s a
song of hope and my prayer for this messed up world. We would also have to sing “Hark, the Herald
Angels Sing”. That would serve as the
theology lesson for day. It is all about
God with us as the man Jesus.
Next, we would sing “I know whom I have believ-ed,
and am persuaded, that he is able, to keep that which I’ve committed unto him
against that day.” That’s an appropriate
hymn for when you’re leaving people you love behind. That’s also a very special hymn to me because
whenever I go back home Mom pulls out the hymnal and starts playing hymns and
that’s the one I will always hear her voice singing in my head. We’d also have to sing “In the Sweet By and
By” because my sisters and I sang that with my Dad weeks before he died as best
we could in harmony. Dad always wanted
to sing bass in a Gospel quartet.
I would have three passages of scripture read. Psalm 23 KJV of course. Isaiah 35 about the
desert blooming. I’ve seen those deserts
in bloom. 1 Corinthians 15:51-58 about
resurrection and when it comes to where it says “Death has been swallowed up in
victory. Where, O Death, is your
victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?”
everybody has to say it together and shout it.
And they have to shout it at the graveside too! Whoever is preaching need not say anything
about me, but rather proclaim Resurrection and New Creation.
Finally, the service will end with “Love Divine, All
Loves Excelling” to the tune of Hyfrydol.
I want all them grieving people leaving with a taste of our being “lost
in wonder, love and praise.”
Oh well, talking about your funeral list may be a bit
morbid on a Sunday morning but I think what he have in Philippians 2:5-11 is
Paul’s funeral hymn. Whether or not he
wrote it is not known to us. He wrote
Philippians from prison. He writes with
confidence that he will be released, but he does so recognizing that it was
highly possible that he might be martyred.
So, his death was on his mind and he uses this hymn to speak a word,
maybe his last word, to a conflicted situation to the church at Philippi. He wants them to get past their conflict by
having in themselves the same humility that Jesus embodied
The hymn tells us that though he was equal to his
Father, Jesus humbly set aside all claims to equality with God and became a
man, a servant, a slave. As a man he
humbled himself unto death, indeed death on a cross. So, God the Father has exalted him so that everything
must bow to him, to the Father’s glory.
At the heart of the hymn is the message that Jesus
did not do what worldly power does, which is exploit status for its own benefit. He let those worldly powers who were claiming
to be god’s or to have power over God do the worst they could do to him...death
on a cross in utter humiliation. The
Prince of peace, Lord of all creation – the powers put him to death in the way
they put treasonous thugs to death.
Behind the scenes were the powers of sin, evil, death, the Satan, all
believing they had power even to put God to death.
But Jesus stuck to the plan of humbling himself and
not using his power as God to bully the powers aside and assert himself to be
God. Rather, by his humiliating death he
unmasked the powers and shamefully exposed them for the petty tyrants they
are. The worldly powers kill the
innocents, kill the good, kill the meek, kill the faithful, kill those who
hunger and thirst for righteousness, kill those who mourn, kill those who show
mercy, kill the pure in heart, kill the peace-makers, kill those who heal. They kill to keep themselves in power. By exposing their petty and shameful
behaviour Jesus opens our eyes to see the powers for what they are and even to
see ourselves for who we are as complicitors.
No one can hear the story of Jesus and his death and say anyone other
than Jesus was in the right. Well, not only did Jesus unmask the powers he showed us what God is like. Jesus on the cross is the
very nature of God.
Something more than an unjust death happened that
day. Just as on Yom Kippur, the Day of
Atonement, the High Priest would place his hands onto the scapegoat and whisper
the sins of the people into its ear and then it would be lead away into the
wilderness to be set free only to meet its death by predators. So, Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, took
humanity’s sin to himself, bore it into the wilderness of political power plays
where the High Priest publically proclaimed false accusations against him and then he was destroyed in death by the powers of imperial predation. By his death everything is now
different. His resurrection, his rising
from death, is the first sign that things have changed.
Jesus and his cross is the way God establishes his
kingdom on earth. His way, the way of humility
of self-emptying oneself of power and status to bring forth healing to this
creation’s brokenness is the way we his followers are to conduct ourselves…yet,
not simply in imitation of Jesus, but because we have his mind in us. He has poured his Spirit into us and we have
the power to be humble as he is humble.
He has made us able to bend our knees before him. Will we empty ourselves of prideful opinions,
judgemental ought’s, and attempts to get our own way and yield ourselves to
him? Amen.
