Funerals and Filters

I leaned over to Rebeca and whispered, "Please help me if there is something I need to do or not do, because I haven't been to many funerals." And I had never been to one as personal as this one. 

Juliette's uncle had died, and he was the closet male relative that she had. I wanted to support Juliette by attending the funeral, but I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had Rebeca and Delphine with me. I watched their every move and did exactly as the did. After living here three years, I'd like to say that I've learned the dagara culture and how to behave in many circumstances, but when it comes to funerals, I feel like I just stepped off the plane. Dagara funerals are so rich in culture and tradition, that I honestly feel awkward, uncomfortable even. The last thing I want to do is offend someone, but the practices are just so foreign that I feel lost. 

First of all, a dagara funeral is generally three days long. A one-hour long funeral is hard enough. Imagine that emotional intensity for three days nonstop. Every moment is spent thinking about the one you loved and lost. Every person who greets you and eevery word of encouragement they speak to you opens up the flood of emotion all over again. For the entire first day, the body of the deceased person is placed before the crowd, and you pass by it and look at it innumerable times during the day. People are wailing, chanters are chanting, and mourning is expected of you during the whole event. You are expected to greet everyone who comes, and people are constantly coming and going. It's both emotionally and physically exhausting. 

Not to mention the traditional practices associated with funerals. Perhaps funerals are the most animistic-saturated element of dagara culture. Some say it is a time to renew the family's alliance with the dead and even the devil. Sacrifices are made, traditional dances performed, animistic fetishes and charms worn. For Christians like Juliette, a funeral is a great temptation as members of the family are expected to perform certain duties and rites that, frankly speaking, are idolatry and paganism. 

Juliette and the members of our team who supported her at the funeral took no part in the animistic practices, but even if you don't participate, you can't escape it entirely. For example, I could hear a man - probably a leader in traditional religion who was hired to direct the funeral - chanting and wailing. I wondered what he was saying, but I suspected it wasn't the words of truth and encouragement that Juliette needed to hear at a time like this. Overall, funerals are dark, hopeless, and desperate. Imagine being surrounded by that for three whole days. 

In the middle of the darkness, I saw a great light. Every time a new person arrived to the funeral, Juliette got up. She would walk towards them, meet them in front of the body of her uncle, and her tears would flow afresh. She would greet them and then turn around to return to her seat with us. Every single time she got up, Delphine would get up, too, and stay by her side wherever she walked. I told Delphine later that this action had touched me, and she explained that since funerals are so exhausting, sometimes people will get dizzy and fall either from weakness or sadness. If Juliette were to fall, Delphine wanted to be there to catch her. 

I recognized something that stands out in stark contrast against the darkness and hopelessness of such a funeral: The hope we have in Christ, who was the first to resurrect from the dead and who brings the promise of resurrection to all who believe! Jesus says he is the resurrection and the life. Death is only a passage to our real lives; it is a celebration of what Jesus has done and how our life truly begins with him after we die. 

This is what Rebeca, Delphine, and I shared with Juliette when we pulled her aside for a moment. When Juliette heard these words, I knew she believed them and received them. They were fresh hope on a very hurting heart. Still, her tears brought tears to my own eyes, and we all shared her pain and her faith together in that moment. 

It's one thing to say you believe that God is good even in suffering, but it's another thing to get to put it into practice when the tears are fresh and the hurt is raw. In that moment, we were all very weak because we were carrying the burden of our sister, yet we were all very strong because iron was sharpening iron. As we talked about the pain we share, but also the hope and the faith we share, strength flowed between us and among us and around us - not from any one person or even directed to any one person - but rather as if it came from a source outside of us. Because it did. It came from a source higher than us, from the one who knows the sting of death better than anyone and who conquered it once and for all. He is the God of all comfort who comforts us in our struggles so that we can comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 

After leaving the funeral, I went up on the top of a hillside, covered in green grass and overlooking the reservoir below. The Lord reminded me of such a familiar passage. "He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters. He restores me soul."  I watched the sun set, and I noticed something remarkable, even miraculous. Behind the mountain where the sun was setting, it was raining. You could see it from afar, the gray rain falling like sheets at a distance, but not coming anywhere near where I was standing. And there, behind the rain, the sun was setting. You could see the sun bursting through the sheets of rain, and yet the rain in front of the sun put a beautiful filter over it, like a bride behind her veil. It made the sun easier to look at and exceptionally majestic and beautiful. 

Is that not exactly what God does with the rainstorms in our lives? Instead of a barrier between us and him, the struggles and hurts in life are like a bride's veil, like a glorious filter that makes him even more beautiful and visible and approachable. His brilliance shines through the pain, and as the sheets of rain fall, we see him through it in a way that we've never seen him before. 

I watched the sun set and I thought, what an honor to share tears and pain and burdens, and also encouragement and strength and faith...all at the same time...with these people that God has given me the gift of loving. Together, we will see and have already seen how his glorious presence bursts through the sheets of rain, and how the pain actually becomes a lense to see him even more clearly and closely.