The Truth Hurts: I Hate Funerals

Funerals are creepy. You heard me, they are spooky and strange and unnerving. This seems like heresy coming from a believer in the God who conquered death, don’t ya think?

Not so fast my speck-plucking friend. If you’re honest you have to agree that funerals are scary primarily because they start off in a funeral home. Funeral homes in that Victorian motif with the strange hearses in front of the building and the back doors that bring in the dead C’MON!

Walking into a funeral parlor is always a bit awkward and tentative for me as well because I never know exactly where they are displaying the body. I walk in tentative with this sickeningly sweet odor in the air that is either death or the remnants of the continuous treadmill of carting the dead flowers in the building and out. Every room potentially holds the deceased, and I’m always jumpy wondering where I will stumble upon them.

The fact that the term “displaying” the body for the “viewing” is used without anyone screaming should be your first clue that something freaky is happening here. Face it, rarely does one walk into a home that they KNOW has a dead body inside and not get a little creeped out. I walk into my own home in the dark and wonder if there is a dead body waiting, and I am reasonably sure there isn’t. At a funeral home it’s a guarantee you aren’t leaving without seeing someone dead!

Finally you find the viewing room, and there at the end of a long aisle is the dead person lying in a coffin with the lid open for everyone to stare at. Of course this is when the typical uncomfortable conversations begin. Mainly because we don’t know what to say since we are staring at a dead person!

“Oh he looks like he’s sleeping!” Really? When he slept he looked like this normally? Perhaps that should have been a clue to get him to the doctor a whole lot sooner. Not to mention if the dearly departed made it a habit to sleep in his suit he obviously was in need of medical attention. Plus, how does anyone know what someone else looks like asleep? Are people wandering through our bedrooms single file at night looking at us and then moving on?

The whole idea that they are sleeping isn’t necessarily comforting as well. If dead people look asleep, do sleeping people look dead? Maybe that’s why when we go to sleep we do it in a special room, in the dark, with blankets to cover our hideous faces. Also when I sleep I normally choose a bed as opposed to a coffin.

“Look how good he looks” is another classic. Folks if I look better dead than alive perhaps I should be at least exploring vitamin supplements. Christians aren’t normally allowed to feel bad at the funeral of a believer. “He’s with the Lord” or “He’s in a better place.” I believe that he is in a better place, that’s not the problem. The rest of us are still stuck down here having to take time out of our day to stare at a cadaver.

Once in awhile you get someone who was cremated which is even odder as we stare at the remains in a small vase. They are in there? What is this a magic trick? I love the music they always have playing. “What is that song?” I ask. Oh it was Jim’s favorite. How inconsiderate! The one guy that liked this song is the only guy not here to enjoy it! If I am forced to stare at a dead guy in order to pay my respects, the least you could do is play songs the rest of us like.

Of course as a believer in Christ as death's conqueror, I do hope and believe that when I die I get to crossover into the land of my Father and Creator. I do long for this reconnection to the relationship God designed for us in the beginning. Then all you people left here will have to stare at me for awhile. Suddenly I become the spooky one. Don’t feel sorry for me dude…you're next!

Dubbed "God's comic" by The New Yorker magazine, comedian Brad Stine brings his irreverent, edgy, and politically incorrect message to both mainstream and church audiences across the nation. His fifth DVD, "The Best of Brad Stine," features the best material from his previous releases, "Put A Helmet On!," "Conservative Unleashed," "Tolerate This!" and "Wussification."

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