Death happens. Across history cultures have created meaningful ways to process the grief and loss that comes from death. This past week, a sacred fire burned for Murray Sinclair at the Manitoba legislature offering a glimpse of Indigenous practices in this country. Diverse funeral rites provide further opportunities for storytelling and connecting to beliefs about life, and death. As Christians, we gather for worship, include sacrament, and engage in fellowship in ways that parallel celebrations in life.
Beyond the original funeral rites, there are expansive graveyards that have been created to inter bodies creating spaces for individuals to visit their loved ones. Markers, such as crosses or gravestones, signal the locations of specific individuals and there are places where loved ones can leave flowers and mementos. Some find incredible comfort spending time with their loved ones in these places across the years. Others are content to cast ashes to the wind and feel the presence of their loved ones in the special places that provide reminders of their lives.
No matter what we do, at the heart of it all we are remembering. We are holding on to those we love through the memories that remain in our hearts and minds. We are cherishing the best of who they were and enabling that to continue to be part of our lives today. We are trusting that our loved ones live on in us and beyond. For many cultures throughout history there is a sense that death is not the end of the story. Loved ones may no longer be available in the same ways they once were but they are not forgotten.
Death is not the end of the story. This understanding can bring hope and healing. It can also provide space for important reflections about life and death like those that can be part of our Remembrance Day journeys. Remembrance Day challenges us to look back at those who have died due to armed conflicts around the world and across history. We know such battles continue to be fought – in the Middle East, the Ukraine, parts of Africa and South America, and places that will get very little media coverage. We know people are dying daily, others are being injured and traumatised. We know at the heart of it all is human sin. We know that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it even as we experience moments when this appears to happen.
With each poppy we see, we are reminded of the pain that violence and war cause. With every Remembrance Day observance, we are challenged to reflect and learn. It is a gift to be able to draw from the depths of our faith as we seek to reflect and learn.
In the Wisdom of Solomon we learn that what we may see as affliction, disaster, destruction, and punishment, God transforms offering peace, immortality, and grace. In the Gospel of John we are told, none are lost, all are redeemed through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Beyond these truths, our faith teaches that God’s love transcends human boundaries and categories creating a new kin-dom where love is the ultimate answer. Indeed, through faith we know that it is when we truly love our neighbours, all our neighbours as faith calls us to do, that peace finds its greatest possibility. Imagine what might happen if we perpetually used Remembrance Day to centre these lessons? How might this change our relationships with each other and how we choose to resolve differences?
Death happens. It is not the end of the story. We can learn and grow and do better and be better. It is up to us to embrace the gifts we have been given by the loving Creator, open ourselves to the redemption offered in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and continually be transformed by the Life-Giving Spirit so that we can perpetually embody the peace that passes all understanding. May this be the hope of our Remembrance Day journey this year and for the future. This we pray as we sing: 352 Amazing Grace