What I Learned at a Funeral

by Rik Danielsen, D. Min.

As a pastor, I’ve been called on to officiate a lot of weddings and funerals. Both have a certain amount of stress attached to them, but, for me, funerals tended to be the more emotional of the two ministries. Watching a widow and her children receive a flag that just came from her husband’s coffin or hearing a police dispatcher give the final call for a fallen officer always choked me up.

One day I was conducting a funeral for a family whose baby was stillborn. What I saw that day moved me more than all the others. There was the young mother and father having to lay to rest their child in a tiny coffin that shouldn’t have to exist. There were the baby’s grandparents, aunts and uncles, and siblings unable to hold back their tears.

Then I saw it. They loved a baby they’d never seen or held. They’d never seen her smile or heard her coo. She’d never held their finger and they had never fed her. That child had never done a thing for them, but they loved her and mourned her passing just the same.

This was a picture of God’s love for all of humanity. God loved us before we were born. He loved us before we could pray to him or worship him. He loved us before we ever darkened the door of a church or put a penny in the offering plate. God loved us before we ever reached out to help the homeless and hurting. God even loved us knowing we would be born sinners and would rebel against him.

When I think of God’s love for humanity, I think of my favorite word in the Old Testament (OT): chesed or hesed. Most English Bible readers probably don’t know this word, but it is used almost two hundred and fifty times in the OT and is considered by some the most important word in the OT. This word describes and defines God’s loving relationship with his people even though they are not particularly faithful to him.

When you read the English Bible you find this word translated: lovingkindness, everlasting love, mercy, steadfastness, love, goodness, and favor. There are so many ways of translating it because it is such a rich word filled with so much meaning. When I’m teaching or preaching on passages containing chesed, I will usually summarize it’s meaning by saying it is like a combination of two New Testament words. They are: God’s grace (xapis in New Testament Greek) and love (agape in New Testament Greek). In other words, we could say it means God’s undeserved, self-sacrificing love that will never end.

It is used in the OT to refer to God’s love for the Hebrew people even though there were many, many times they were unfaithful to him. “This steady, persistent refusal of God to wash his hands of wayward Israel is the essential meaning of the Hebrew word which is translated loving-kindness.” (https://www.bible-researcher.com/chesed.html)

Because God loved his people so much, he refused “to wash his hands” of them. Personally, I can say how thankful I am that God loves me so much he refuses to wash his hands of me. His love truly is everlasting and he is truly merciful to those who have turned from their sin and turned to Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Let me give you a short list of Bible verses that contain chesed:

• Psalm 51:1 (ESV) Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

• Psalm 63:3 (ESV) Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

• Psalm 103:1-4 (ESV) Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,

• Jeremiah 31:3 (ESV) …I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.

I’ve conducted and attended several funerals for babies that were stillborn. I remember one where the father was able to carry the casket to the gravesite all by himself. That’s an image I’ll never forget. One of the things they have all had in common was a family that was brokenhearted for the loss of the child they had already grown to love. Outwardly, those children had never contributed one thing to those families, but they were loved anyway.

You and I can never do a thing to earn God’s love. You can sacrifice your life as a missionary in the darkest place in the world and God won’t love you any more than he did when he formed you in your mother’s womb. God’s love for you is merciful and it is everlasting. How can we know that for sure?

Romans 5:8 (ESV) but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Copyright 2022 Rik Danielsen