by Dennis L. Bushkofsky

"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?"

In November, on All Saints Day, we often remember those whose funerals were held in our communities and congregations over the past year. With average life spans increasing in recent decades that often means we honor those who lived into old age. Why then, as we consider All Saints Day, do we link funerals and baptisms, which are most often celebrated with the very young, with new life?

Actually, death and life, funerals and baptisms, have quite a lot to do with one another. From Romans 6:3–4 we read: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life."

Clothed in Christ
The apostle Paul goes on to say that dying with Christ means that we will also live with him (Romans 6:8). In this manner, baptism — as well as death — acknowledges that we are joined both to Christ’s death and resurrection. These verses from the New Testament are often read at the beginning of a funeral service (see Lutheran Book of Worship, page 206). This is the point of the service at which a white funeral pall may be placed over a casket; this too is an allusion to baptism.

We understand baptism itself as a type of clothing (see Galatians 3:27). When baptism by immersion is practiced, the newly baptized need to put on a clean and dry set of clothes soon after coming up out of the water. In some traditions, these dry clothes may be very similar to the white garments that many worship leaders often wear. Even if a special garment is not provided for the newly baptized, infants often wear white baptismal gowns or other white clothing for their baptism. Putting on a white garment is symbolic of the purity of Christ. Whether it is used at baptism or at a funeral, a white garment is also symbolic of the redeemed in the book of Revelation (6:11).

Bathed in the light of Christ
Light is another symbol that is common to both baptisms and funerals. Many congregations light an Easter (or paschal) candle during the Easter vigil service and keep it lit throughout the Easter season. This same candle is also lit throughout the year whenever there is a baptism or a funeral. At a baptism, it is common to give a small candle lit from the Easter candle to the newly baptized as a symbol of Christ’s light marking the path of each Christian. The Easter candle often leads the procession into and out of a funeral service. The Easter candle stands as a constant reminder of Christ’s presence through all circumstances of our lives, as well as through death and on to eternity. A number of congregations have also begun having many small candles available at the festival of All Saints (November 1 or the first Sunday of November) for worshipers to light and to remember the lives of people who have died.

Marked with the sign of Christ
In baptism new Christians are marked with the sign of the cross as a further demonstration of being united to Christ’s death and resurrection. Martin Luther invited people to remember their baptism daily by tracing the sign of the cross upon themselves as they awoke and as they went to bed (see the orders for morning and evening prayer in Luther’s Small Catechism, included in Evangelical Lutheran Worship). Many people may also trace the sign of the cross upon themselves at the invocation that often begins our weekly worship. Signing with the cross may also be used at the committal portion of the funeral service as the body or ashes are buried or laid to rest.

In these ways the sign of the cross may be said to accompany the entire life of a Christian, beginning from baptism through each day of life, at worship, as well as in death.

Death to the old Adam
Baptism is a moment when we clearly draw the line between that which keeps us away from God and that which brings us closer to God. Before confessing our faith, we renounce the ways of sin that draw us away from God (ELW, p. 229). After the baptism, a prayer for the strengthening of the Holy Spirit’s presence is said for the newly baptized.

Martin Luther referred to the old Adam (sin, the devil) as needing to be drowned so that the new person in Christ could emerge (see Luther’s Large Catechism). Though this happens just once for each of us through baptism, our remembrance of this act is an important aspect of daily devotion, since the struggles we face between good and evil, sin and faith, are not finished until we die.

The font as a place for the living
As congregations begin to make baptismal fonts more accessible, particularly near the entrance to the church or at another place where people can easily approach them, the font has also served as a powerful symbol during funeral services. Perhaps the casket is placed near the font at the beginning or even throughout the funeral liturgy. When the pall is placed on the casket near the font while the words from Romans 6 are read, the connection between baptism and the death of a Christian could hardly be stronger.

One congregation’s baptismal font is surrounded by a columbarium. One cannot use that space for a baptism without being reminded of the local saints who have previously lived and worshiped in that space; but neither can one go to a committal service there for someone who has died without being reminded of God’s eternal promises to us in baptism.

Homeward bound
While I have often led funeral services that are away from a church building (such as at funeral homes or cemetery chapels), I have always felt that funeral services held in the place where the congregation ordinarily worships (and particularly where the symbols of baptism are present and visible) allow many more resources to be used for pastoral care and consolation.

As a preacher, I believe that the spoken word is important, particularly in the funeral sermon. At a funeral, though, many of the ritual actions we perform can also speak to us at a time when adequate words may be difficult to find. The journeys that we make throughout our lives in coming to the font, in being seated to listen to the Scripture and preaching, and in coming to receive communion around the altar are familiar to most of us, and they all may be repeated during the context of a funeral. These familiar patterns can be profoundly comforting in the presence of grief when everything may seem so disconnected from our ordinary experience. When churchly and baptismal symbols can be employed at the time of a funeral, I have always felt that the experience was more deeply comforting than when these symbols are not present at all.

How meaningful the baptismal symbols were made clear to me when I presided at the funeral of a 90–year–old woman who had been an active church member and whose five–generation family was deeply connected to the life of that congregation. We gathered for a morning funeral service at which a number of relatives and other members of the congregation were present. After placing the funeral pall on the casket, an assisting minister carrying the Easter candle led the mourners into place as the congregation sang, "Guide me ever, great Redeemer." We read Scripture passages that had been dear to the woman and were meaningful to all of us. Even during the middle of winter — and the season of Lent at that — the congregation sang hymns and heard Scripture readings speaking of our baptismal life and of the resurrection’s promise. We celebrated Holy Communion. Then we had a meal together in the church’s fellowship hall.

When lunch was over, the closest relatives and friends traveled an hour to the 250–year–old church where the woman had grown up worshiping. Here, we held a second, shorter service with relatives who could not come to the earlier service. We took the funeral pall with us and placed the casket next to the font where the woman had been baptized. After this second service, we processed out into the churchyard where the burial took place amid gravestones showing names that would have been familiar to the woman now at rest.

This dear saint had traveled widely in her lifetime, and she had returned to the place from whence she had come. This would have been true whether or not we had gone back to her ancestral community, since her home had been with God from the day of her baptism.

Dennis L. Bushkofsky is an interim pastor of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod (ELCA) and the editor of Liturgy, a quarterly journal of the Liturgical Conference.