For anyone that doesn’t know me; hi, my name is Kevin and I cry at funerals. I use to cry from personal loss or the loss of the surviving loved ones. Things left unsaid, bridges left unmended, major life events missed or a life cut too short.
Today I was honored by our ministry hosts, Steve and Joy, to a relative’s buddhist funeral and wake. The house we are staying at is 50 yards away from the house where the wake was happening and we left school at 11 am to have lunch with the family.
At a traditional Thai funeral, the host family is responsible for feeding all-comers in honor of the recently deceased. Today the meal was sticky rice with bamboo and mushrooms, fried (whole) fish, and a spicy lentil. This was a fantastic meal. I left completely satisfied. And we were given seats of honor, where the buddhist monks recently vacated.
As we sat there talking with Steve about Thai culture and his life and how he ended up here. A man started announcing that the processional was about to begin. The casket was on cart and 12 men pulled it to the crematorium. They honored the monks with gift and then they chanted.
Then people came around giving gifts. I was given a flashlight and a little paper flower. I didn’t know that the paper flower was given so that I could honor the man by giving it back to him and they poured it on to his body as tinder for the fire. Finally with all this pomp they ended it with a fireworks display that would put some 4th of July’s to shame.
But here I am crying quietly to myself. Because as I was walking up to lay that tiny paper flower down to honor a man that I will never know, because he and his whole family except Joy and Steve are buddhist, one of the women standing next to the casket was weeping with her hands folded in front of her face as if praying, to honor the guest to her loved one’s funeral. She has no hope. She lives in a cycle of works and duty that gives no hope. Someone she loves is gone forever in her mind. And what popped into my head was God is weeping too.
One of His beloved children died without knowing and having a relationship with Jesus Christ. And that is when I started praying that the Holy Spirit would move in and through these people so that they can realize that God loves them and He wants to be with them, to comfort them and give them a hope and a future.
Walking back from the funeral I started thinking on all the symbolism. They gave us water as we got to the crematorium, but not the living water, they gave everyone a flower; that symbolize hope and new life, and they have neither, and finally the flashlight and fireworks to bring light when the Light of the World is shining down on them but they have bought into the lies that Satan has sold them. It breaks my heart.
