Our presence here today is part of a process of healing. In the presence of death faith amounts to this daring to believe in a God who heals. If we believe in God we believe first of all that God is the source of all that has life. God is the author of life. We don’t understand much of the story it can sometimes seem all too painful. But if this author, this tremendously rich reality we call God can create things and people that can be so precious to us, then we must believe that what is created can never be let go of, and can always be healed.
Some of us may come here today knowing something of that healing. In our lives and in the lives of those we have loved there may have been corners unexpectedly turned, reconciliations achieved, recoveries made, and partings that were all we could have hoped for. For others of us there may still be pains that are difficult to heal, memories that still have their disabling effect upon us. There may be things we still wish could have been done or said differently. But if that is the case then our being here today is a sign that we still hope to find healing. We still trust that through patience and prayer and the help and support of friends or through finding the right person to talk to our memories can be healed.
And what is true for us must have been true for those we come here to remember today. They too will have known times of healing; but perhaps they too will have ended their lives with some things that were still hurtful, things that were unreconciled, things they wished they had left undone or regretted doing. And what we declare here today is a faith in God who has an eternity to work with us in this life and beyond. God’s power to heal us is not limited to this life. God always has more to give and though death may mark a change in our relationship with God it does not mark the end of that relationship.
So in our prayers to day we continue to give thanks for those we love who have died; but we also continue to pray that God continues his process of healing and renewal in them. In our prayers we continue to believe that life still has unknown possibilities for those we love in the nearer presence of God.
Stephen Tucker