In a previous Associated Content article, I gave several illustrations I’ve used in funeral sermons. I noted in that article that I like to use illustrations to catch the attention of the listeners and, I might add, to drive home the points I’m trying to make.
Here are several more great illustrations that I’ve used in funeral sermons. I take no credit for them; I was simply fortunate to come across them in my reading.
Peter Marshall and Our New Bodies. One of the devastating things in the death of many people is the physical deterioration that they go through on the way to death. In connection with this, I like to use II Corinthians 4:16-18 as one of the passages I read as part of the funeral service:
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
To the eyes of faith, there is something at work in each of us that is hidden from sight, a spiritual renewal. More than that, not only is there the spiritual renewal, but there is also the promise of a new body ahead for us, based on I Corinthians 15. In his sermon, “Go Down Death,” Peter Marshall, who served as the pastor of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. and was also the United States Senate Chaplain, has a passage about the transformation of our bodies:
” As we pass behind the curtain and live again, live on…and on…it will not be as now-not with a body like this…
Not with a wrinkled brow and dimming eyes,
Not with a twisted spine or a withered arm,
Not with an amputated leg or an injured heart,
Not with the drunkard’s thirst like the fires of hell,
Not with a mind haunted with an endless procession of fears,
Tortured with the might-have-beens,
Not with a heart eaten out with bitter memories
Or filled with the broken glass of vanquished dreams.
No, not with these do we make our entrance into the other land.
We rise, not clothed again with dying clay,
Not garbed once more in the fading garments of mortal flesh,
But with the shining mercy of God.”
(See the reference below)
Dr. Marshall’s sermon continues with a poem from James Weldon Johnson, “Go Down Death,” a poem from which the sermon gets its title.
Charlemagne’s Requests. In my previous article on funeral sermon illustrations, I shared one about Muhammed Ali. Max Lucado used that one in his book, TheApplause of Heaven (See reference below), and followed it with an illustration about the Roman emperor Charlemagne. Legend says that Charlemagne asked to be buried sitting on a throne. He wanted a crown on his head and a scepter in his hand. A royal cape would be draped around his shoulders and there would be a book lying open on his lap.
That was in A.D. 814. About 200 years later, another emperor decided to see if Charlemagne’s requests had been carried out. He had the tomb opened. The body was found in the position that Charlemagne had requested. Now, however, the crown was tilted, there were moth holes in the cape, and the body had decayed. The open book was still there-the Bible that Charlemagne had asked for-and a finger pointed to Matthew 16:26, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?”
The application of that illustration and that passage seems obvious, especially given the modern obsession with things and power and fame.
Christ Satisfies Our Thirst. In most of my funeral sermons, I include a segment pointing the listeners to the salvation that Christ offers. In the Lucado book referred to in the preceding section, the author writes about an incident that took place in 1988 when a devastating earthquake hit Soviet Armenia. Fifty-five thousand people died.
Among the survivors were Susanna Petroysan and her daughter, four-year-old Gayaney. They were trapped beneath debris for eight days. Little Gayaney soon became thirsty. Her mother felt around in the darkness and found a jar of jam, which she gave to her daughter. It was gone on the second day. Her daughter was still thirsty. Eventually Susanna remembered a television program where an explorer in the Arctic slashed his hand and let his companion drink his blood.
Susanna found a piece of glass, stuck her finger and let Gayaney drink the blood. Susanna has no idea how many times she stuck herself. She only knows that if Gayaney had not had the blood, she would have died.
I think the application is obvious: we sinners were saved through the blood of Jesus, and that salvation is still available.
D. L. Moody on the Attractiveness of Heaven. I don’t know where I came across this illustration, but it speaks to me about the need at some point in life to at least give some thought to heaven.
The great evangelist, D. L. Moody, once talked about a man who said that when he was young, he thought of heaven largely as a great shining city, filled with vast halls, domes, and towers, and inhabited by millions of angels whom he did not know. But then his little brother died. After that he thought of heaven as a great shining city filled with vast walls and towers and unknown angels, abut now also with one little fellow he knew. When a second brother died there were two he knew. As time went on, acquaintances died. In time one of his children went to be with the Lord; then another child and still another. By this time, the man seldom thought about walls and towers. He thought of those residents he knew and his interest in heaven intensified. Toward the end of his life so many of his acquaintances had gone to heaven that it sometimes seemed to him that he knew more persons in heaven than he did on earth. And of course his thoughts fixed increasingly on that distant place.
As I’ve ministered to people with serious illnesses or even those who are getting weary of the daily routine of life, I’ve noticed that there is a desire to move onto what the Lord has prepared for them. Just the other day at a Bible study session, a lady in her 90s was saying that she “can’t wait to get to heaven.” She is still a lively, active woman, but she’s anxious to move onto the next stage in her life’s journey.
C. S. Lewis and the Importance of All Persons. As a pastor, I know how it’s easy to begin to think that I’m a pretty important person who is looked up to by many people. Comments after a sermon or a well-conducted wedding or funeral add to what one man called “the glorifying of the worm.” Most of us know how far we fall short of our own standards much less God’s standards, so we can generally resist the temptations to self-glorification.
C. S. Lewis, however, wants us to see ourselves as more than just ordinary people. In fact, in his address, “The Weight of Glory,” he emphatically states that “there are no ordinary people.” He goes on to say that we “have never talked to a mere mortal.
“Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations-these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendours…Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
For the family which wonders if anyone has really taken their loved one seriously, these are uplifting words, words which affirm the importance of persons created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).
For pastors who want to find good illustrations for their sermons, I have two suggestions: (1) read widely, and (2) watch and listen to other people. You’ll quickly find all you need to add flavor to your sermons.
Sources:
Catherine Marshall, A Man Called Peter (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951), 262.
Max Lucado, The Applause of Heaven (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1990), 153.
Ibid, 91-93.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1980), 19.
