A Time to Refrain from Embracing

A Time to Refrain from Embracing

For everything there is a season,

and a time for every purpose under heaven.

A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them,

A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.

Ecclesiastes 3:1,5

By the time I reached my teenage years, I was an old hand at playing/singing for funerals. I had lost much of my timidity and felt confident in my job.  One warm spring day, I arrived at the Sunset Chapel to play for the service of a man who had unexpectedly died at the young age of 52.  The first thing I noticed were masses of flowers, and a huge casket, indicating that the man was very tall.

His wife, on the other hand, was very short and very distraught.  She walked to her seat surrounded by three tall sons, who tried their best to comfort her and stem the cries and sobs.  The service was beautiful and, thankfully, short.  I settled into playing softly while the family said their last goodbyes.  The wife’s cries became close to howls as her sons finally tried to guide her away from her husband.  She kept turning back, but they had a firm grip on her and were moving slowly but surely to the exit.

About three feet from the doors, the funeral director came up to say his goodbyes, distracting the sons momentarily from their hold on their mother.   The woman whirled around and sprinted down the aisle like Allyson Felix headed for the finish line.  Reaching her destination, she grabbed her husband around the upper chest in a tight embrace and with superhuman strength, pulled him halfway out of the coffin.

The funeral director and the family arrived on the scene at the same time.  The director wrestled the body out of the woman’s grasp, then the sons grabbed their mama with an iron grip and hustled her out of the building.  The staff stuffed the body back in the casket as best they could, and quickly wheeled it away - the signal that I could finally stop playing.

As I look back on that day, my heart goes out to that distraught widow, whose love for her husband made her unwilling to part with him, even in death.  Did she know of the promises written down by the Apostle John?   God will wipe away every tear from their eyes,  There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. [Revelation 21:4].  I hope so.

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Sing with all the saints in glory, sing the resurrection song.

Death and sorrow, earth’s dark story, to the former days belong.

All around the clouds are breaking, soon the storms of time shall cease.

In God’s likeness we, awaking, know the everlasting peace.

The United Methodist Hymnal, No. 702

(Sung to the tune, Joyful, Joyful, We Adores Thee)