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在服侍中，我碰到一些人，他们不喜欢葬礼。他们说，哀悼死者是一种负面和难过的体验；葬礼会提醒我们，每个人都是会死的，没有人的生命永远持续下去。

不过，葬礼也体现出一个人的生命对神、对他人的意义。尽管雅各也有不少的缺点，但他的儿子们看起来很爱他。在埃及他们后来的家，他们举行盛大的葬礼来尊荣他。而他被安葬在自己的家乡，则是一个信心的行动：这让人想起他信靠神的应许，相信神会给他的后代一块土地，在那里，他们将安稳地活在神面前。（参创 48:21）

在葬礼上的悲伤，表明一个人的生命对我们和对神来说很有意义。但我们悲伤，不会像那些没有指望的人。（参帖前 4:13）在神的恩典中死了的人，是存着盼望死的，他们盼望能安稳地活在神面前；那些在基督里哀哭的人也存着同样的盼望。

基督徒信仰的好消息是“死被得胜吞灭了”。（参林前 15:54）死亡显出我们在渴望保存生命之时的无望，但也提醒我们耶稣的复活；在祂的复活里，我们的罪被赦免，永生已赐下。惟愿我们的葬礼能显出这些盼望的伟大之处。

In my ministry work, I've met a number of people who dislike funerals. They say that mourning the dead is a negative and distasteful experience. It reminds us that everyone is mortal; no one's life will go on indefinitely.

A funeral, however, can also express the significance of a person's life before God and others. Despite their father's flaws, Jacob's sons appear to have loved him. They honored him with all the pomp and ceremony of their adopted home in Egypt. But Jacob's burial in his homeland is also an act of faith: it recalls his trust in God's promise to give Israel's descendants a place where they could live securely before God (see Genesis 48:21).

Grief at a funeral appropriately affirms that a person's life meant something to us and to God. But we do not grieve as people who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Believers who die in the grip of God's grace die with the hope of living securely before God, and those who mourn have the same hope in Christ.

The good news of the Christian faith is that "death has been swallowed up in victory" (1 Corinthians 15:54). Death points to our helplessness to maintain life as we desire it, but it also recalls the resurrection of Jesus through which sin is forgiven and eternal life is given. May our funerals embrace this greatest of all hopes.