Saturday Mourning

My dear friend's father passed away last week. He was 59, and this was a sudden and unexpected loss. One might expect the funeral service to be mournful, somber, filled with women wailing near the casket, and men shaking their heads in that "what a shame, such a tragedy" way.

But Roger Smith was the beloved pastor of a small church in South Los Angeles, located just a few blocks from the intersection of Florence and Normandie, where the 1992 Rodney King riots began. It was a neighborhood I'd never even driven through before I met my friend Denise, whose blood family and church family I have since grown to love. How would this affect them? Pastor Smith -- I never heard anyone, even his wife, call him anything but "pastor" -- was their leader and teacher and visionary.

To my surprise, I couldn't have picked a better way to spend my Saturday morning.

When I arrived for the viewing, there was already "something wrong with this picture." People standing in line to sign the guestbook were greeting each other with smiles, hugs and laughter. There was a buzz of animated conversation emanating from the sanctuary. The worship leader (and now, senior pastor) of the church spotted me immediately and hugged the stuffing out of me, welcoming me with the broadest of eye-twinkling grins and saying how good it was to see me.

Am I at a funeral, here, or what?

An usher handed me a booklet, containing the order of service, some photos of the Smith family, and a bio/obituary. The front cover said it all:

"Victory Celebration For The Life Of Pastor Roger Smith"

Aha. These people aren't kidding. Look at them -- a few tears, but they're also laughing. What gives?

The reason, I think, that I had been so perplexed is that my immediate family doesn't believe in funerals and memorial services, thinking them morbid. Over the years, I've often heard people say that instead of a funeral when they die, they want a "big party" to "celebrate their life." But that strikes me as a sad attempt at self-consolation. What's the point? If I'm never going to see you again, what does it profit me or anyone else to get drunk and tell stories about the good old days? Those memories will die with the people who experienced them, leaving no legacy, and drowning sorrows in alcohol will only delay the experience of the sorrow itself -- sorrow which will surely be experienced alone, after the partygoers have all gone away. You're still dead, I'm still alive, and I'll never see you again. What is there to celebrate?

But this funeral was a true celebration. It wasn't a gathering of people pretending to be happy about something, people living in the so-called glories of the past. This was a gathering of people who were marking a day of sorrow by trusting in the hope of the future. And by future, I do not mean the work of the church that Pastor Smith had accomplished. I do not mean the lives that his life and ministry had touched for the better. I do not mean the lives of his children and grandchildren still in their prime.

Pastor Smith was a family man and an accomplished man, to be sure. He served in the U.S. Navy; earned a Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate; worked for many years in major aerospace corporations and in civil service; was active in his community; pastored a church; earned his pilot's license; and at the time of his death had just begun to realize his dream of reaching out to the poor via an ongoing series of medical mercy missions to the Dominican Republic. He had not wasted his life.

But the dozen or so people who spoke at his service didn't mention these things. The focus was not on Pastor Smith's greatness, but instead, on the greatness of God.

The loving tributes were full of memories, yes, but also full of scripture and of joy. Over and over again, the speakers addressed the family's grief but also told of God's promises -- that He will send a comforter in the person of the Holy Spirit, that He will never leave nor forsake His people who love Him, that He will prepare a place for us to live with Him in eternity, that His victory over death is complete and available to all who believe. It was not a goodbye, but a sendoff in acknowledgment of a later reunion. It was a worship service, and it wasn't Pastor Smith who was being worshipped.

And it was beautiful. And it was thought-provoking. And I left that hall of glorious mourning with a lightness of being I've not felt in quite some time.

Someone did mention that a few weeks before his death, Pastor Smith had (prophetically?) preached a sermon on Ecclesiastes 7:8a, which reads, "The end of a matter is better than its beginning." The obituary in the tribute booklet reads, "On Monday, May 22, 2006 Pastor Smith unexpectedly crossed over into glory -- as was his ultimate wish for himself and every other believer. He has now been issued his new, perfect body and sits at the side of the Savior in joyful worship."

Amen, Pastor Smith. Catch you later.