“OUR FAITH GIVES US HOPE”

Funeral Homily
Romans 6:3-9; John 11:17-27

I was ten years old when my father passed away. Even I was just a little boy I can still remember when we heard the news about the death of our father. All of us in our home burst into tears. We couldn’t hold back our tears. It was the darkest moment happened in our family. It was very sad. We lost our loved one. We lost our father, our loving father. We cried, “Lord, you know we love him, why he had to go away?

Losing a person we love is so sad… really sad. It really hurts. It breaks our hearts into many pieces. And it is not easy. I experienced how is it losing of someone I love. I know the feeling. So we are united with you today in sorrow at the death of your beloved.

The reality of death confronts us. And this reality brings us pain and sorrow. But we are also confronted with something else… our faith. And we have to allow ourselves to be confronted with this faith. Our faith gives us hope. Our faith gives us light. Our faith opens our hearts and minds to understand why it happened to us. It opens our minds why our love one has to go away.

We believe that “if we died with Christ, we shall also live in Him” and “if we have grown into union with him through a death like His, we shall also be united with Him in the resurrection.” We believe in the resurrection. This is the very core of our faith as Christian - the resurrection. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, our faith is useless.

Jesus Christ gives us an assurance. He says "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Jesus is the resurrection. Jesus is life, our life. He gives us hope. Our death here on earth is not the last chapter of our lives. Death is not last period. It is not the end. Jesus conquered death. Through His resurrection we will live in a newness of life.

I would like you to just fix your eyes on the crucifix. Just look at Jesus now on the cross. He was dying. He was dying so that we might live. “Dying, He destroyed our death. Rising, He restored our life”. Jesus did not remain on that cross. He is risen. Death is conquered. Do we faith in Jesus Christ? Do we believe that He is the resurrection?

Now we are grieving. The death of our love one made a hole in our hearts. It is very sad to say that we do not see our love one anymore. It is natural for us to grieve. We are just human. But our faith gives us hope. Now we are grieving with hope. We are grieving but never despair. We will see him again because we believe in the promise of Christ. We pray for our love one for the complete journey to heaven. We pray also for ourselves that we may grow in faith. Our faith makes us strong. Our faith gives us hope that our love one who gone ahead of us, and all of us, will rise again and we will live forever.