Show Up at Your Own Funeral!
I recently read an article about a Brazilian man (Ademir Jorge Goncalves) who showed up at his own funeral. The Brazilian bricklayer was thought to have died in a car crash one Sunday evening, as some of his relatives falsely identified the victim’s body as Goncalves.
The funeral was held the next day, which is often the custom in Brazil, and Goncalves (who had spent the night with some friends) did not get word about his own funeral until the next morning, when the funeral was already in progress.
A police spokesman explained that Goncalves, after learning of what had happened, immediately rushed to the funeral to let family members know he was not dead.
The terrible mistake had been the result of a “badly disfigured corpse wearing similar clothing [to Goncalves]” (who was later correctly identified) coupled with a few family members who were “afraid to look for very long when [identifying the body].”
Perhaps there are some readers of this article who need to follow the example of Goncalves and show up at your own funeral! No, I’m not talking about showing up to a mortuary filled with folks who think you have really died, but I’m referring to funerals that sometimes take place when people around you have deemed you “dead” in another way.
For example, perhaps you’ve made a big mistake recently, and a group of people around you have therefore seized your latest shortcoming as their opportunity to announce the permanent “end” of your ministry, your calling, or your spiritual influence. Don’t let these false identifiers get away with it! – Show up at your own funeral! If you’ve taken your shortcomings to God (1 John 1:9), and if you’re determined to allow him to help you get back on the right track (Proverbs 3:6), you’re no where close to being “finished!” So you can show up at your own funeral, and you can proudly announce, “I’m still here, and God’s not done with me yet! So you best put away the casket of guilt and shame, because nobody’s getting buried today!”
Then again, maybe there are some people around you who (for whatever reason) have always been against you, as they’ve done everything they possibly could do to crush you and pull the rug of confidence out from under you and your ministry. And so maybe you’re going through a rough time and feeling defeated, as if Satan has finally gotten the best of you, while your enemies are currently planning a victory dance around your figurative gravestone. If this is the case, you need to remember what God’s word says to those of us who feel like the world is crashing down around us, and then you need to show up at your own funeral! The Bible says about those of us who have partnered with Christ, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). If those aren’t funeral-crashing declarations, then I don’t know what is! It’s high time we listen to the word of God and keep marching ever-forward, instead of listening to the words of the naysayers around us who would like nothing more than to bury us alive.
If there are people hosting a funeral in your honor (or, if in fact, “you” have been the culprit of throwing your own funeral with your ideas of shame and self-defeat), show up at your own funeral, and put an end to the false identification once and for all! Let God be the ONE who tells you when his mission for you on this earth has been completed, and (until that time) crash each and every premature funeral of yours with this shout, “I’m still here! And there’s nothing anybody can do about that!"
I recently read an article about a Brazilian man (Ademir Jorge Goncalves) who showed up at his own funeral. The Brazilian bricklayer was thought to have died in a car crash one Sunday evening, as some of his relatives falsely identified the victim’s body as Goncalves.
The funeral was held the next day, which is often the custom in Brazil, and Goncalves (who had spent the night with some friends) did not get word about his own funeral until the next morning, when the funeral was already in progress.
A police spokesman explained that Goncalves, after learning of what had happened, immediately rushed to the funeral to let family members know he was not dead.
The terrible mistake had been the result of a “badly disfigured corpse wearing similar clothing [to Goncalves]” (who was later correctly identified) coupled with a few family members who were “afraid to look for very long when [identifying the body].”
Perhaps there are some readers of this article who need to follow the example of Goncalves and show up at your own funeral! No, I’m not talking about showing up to a mortuary filled with folks who think you have really died, but I’m referring to funerals that sometimes take place when people around you have deemed you “dead” in another way.
For example, perhaps you’ve made a big mistake recently, and a group of people around you have therefore seized your latest shortcoming as their opportunity to announce the permanent “end” of your ministry, your calling, or your spiritual influence. Don’t let these false identifiers get away with it! – Show up at your own funeral! If you’ve taken your shortcomings to God (1 John 1:9), and if you’re determined to allow him to help you get back on the right track (Proverbs 3:6), you’re no where close to being “finished!” So you can show up at your own funeral, and you can proudly announce, “I’m still here, and God’s not done with me yet! So you best put away the casket of guilt and shame, because nobody’s getting buried today!”
Then again, maybe there are some people around you who (for whatever reason) have always been against you, as they’ve done everything they possibly could do to crush you and pull the rug of confidence out from under you and your ministry. And so maybe you’re going through a rough time and feeling defeated, as if Satan has finally gotten the best of you, while your enemies are currently planning a victory dance around your figurative gravestone. If this is the case, you need to remember what God’s word says to those of us who feel like the world is crashing down around us, and then you need to show up at your own funeral! The Bible says about those of us who have partnered with Christ, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). If those aren’t funeral-crashing declarations, then I don’t know what is! It’s high time we listen to the word of God and keep marching ever-forward, instead of listening to the words of the naysayers around us who would like nothing more than to bury us alive.
If there are people hosting a funeral in your honor (or, if in fact, “you” have been the culprit of throwing your own funeral with your ideas of shame and self-defeat), show up at your own funeral, and put an end to the false identification once and for all! Let God be the ONE who tells you when his mission for you on this earth has been completed, and (until that time) crash each and every premature funeral of yours with this shout, “I’m still here! And there’s nothing anybody can do about that!"
