You may have seen the news story from earlier in the week. Arch West who invented Doritos snack chips has died. He was 97 and lived a long and, by all accounts, a good life.  There will be a graveside service in Dallas tomorrow and the well-wishers (mourner doesn’t seem to work) will be encouraged to scatter Doritos in and around the hole where the ashes will be buried. Arch West’s daughter said her father would think the scattering of the chips to be hilarious.

Somewhere along the way, hilarity has become the mark of a good funeral.

I have conducted hundreds of funerals over the years. In my previous church, an older congregation in an older community, twenty funerals a year was average and two or three a month was not unusual. It is true that hilarity has become the mark of a good funeral. In fact, avoiding the word funeral has become the mark of a good funeral. So has denial of the reality of death.

The local funeral home dubs itself a “life celebration home” and I do not begrudge them the name. They are a business and they wisely reflect the mood of their market. The mood of the market is that when death occurs (now referred to as “passing” or “passing on,” though it is not clear as to the destination to which we are passing), we should focus entirely on the life lived, celebrating it in every way we can, no matter what its quality. There is little agreement about the meaning of death and so we avoid the subject altogether.

We talk about the life. Sometimes there are heroic deeds, significant accomplishments and great courage to remember. Or we may recall one whose love, care and compassion touched a thousand lives and surely made the world a better place. In some cases, though, the best we can do is conclude that despite the lack of courage, care and compassion, there were those endearing quirks of personality that are, perhaps, worth remembering. We know we can’t go very deep, the fabric of our memories is threadbare, and to break the tension that comes from knowing that there really is not much to celebrate, we turn to hilarity. We hope that one of the eulogizers, maybe the pastor, has a  funny story to tell, something hilarious to say.

The one thing we don’t talk much about is death or whether or not the deceased knew the One who has conquered death. Oh, someone may read a vapid poem about grandma looking down on us.  Or we add some hilarity to our thin conviction that the deceased has actually passed on to someplace worth going. In addition to countless references to the fishing holes and golf courses in heaven, I have heard speculation about Saint Peter having to tell salty old Aunt Thelma to quit cussin’ now that she’s inside the pearly gates, or Uncle Ned wanting us to know that when the rest of us get there, the next round’s on him. We laugh and the uncomfortable tension is eased.

Our laughter hides the fact that we have no idea at all what death might mean and we are sore afraid of it.

Of course, in increasing numbers we simply skip both funerals and life celebrations. Either the diseased let it known ahead of time that she wanted no such thing (often for reasons of vanity or pride) or the remaining family members really don’t want to be bothered (they may be too busy or think they have too little to celebrate).

We are left with life celebrations or nothing.

It wasn’t always that way. Thomas Long, a seminary professor and writer, reminds us that the funeral was once “the grand cosmic drama of the church marching to the edge of eternity with a fellow saint, singing songs of resurrection victory and sneering in the face of the final enemy.”  The liturgy and ritual of the funeral was all about death. And its defeat.

The Puritan preacher Thomas Brooks put it this way in his 1651 sermon at the funeral of a Mrs. Martha Randall at Christ’s Church, London:

When death shall give the fatal stroke, there shall be an exchange of earth—for heaven; of imperfect enjoyments—for perfect enjoyments of God; then the soul shall be swallowed up with a full enjoyment of God; no corner of the soul shall be left empty—but all shall be filled up with the fullness of God. Here in this present world, they receive grace—but in heaven they shall receive glory. God keeps the best wine until last; the best of God, Christ, and heaven—is beyond this present world. Here we have but some sips, some tastes of God; fullness is reserved for the glorious state. He who sees most of God here on earth, sees but his back parts; his face is a jewel of that splendor and glory, which no eye can behold but a glorified eye.

Brooks called his sermon, “A Believer’s Last Day, His Best Day.”

When I die, and I know of no plans for that to be any time soon, would those of you who remain mind throwing me a funeral?  You can laugh at some of the dumb things I have done, but do more than that.  If I happen to be around LPC, put my casket as close to the foot of that towering cross as possible. And then be the “church marching to the edge of eternity with a fellow saint, singing songs of resurrection victory and sneering in the face of the final enemy.”

And please hold the Doritos. They don’t go with good wine.  You see, “God keeps the best wine until last; the best of God, Christ, and heaven—is beyond this present world. Here we have but some sips, some tastes of God; fullness is reserved for the glorious state.”