‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.’ (Rom. 15:13)
Dressed in black, a family gathers round a grave. Slowly, the coffin is lowered into the ground. One by one, the mourners gather a handful of earth and let it slip through fingers onto the lid of the plain oak box. The minister speaks: ‘…earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ…’. For centuries, this was how Anglican Christians buried their dead.
The words of Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer, which are really just the words of Scripture, do two pastorally vital things. First, they bring us face to face with the last enemy each of us must meet. Neither Cranmer nor the Bible shield us with soothing lies or convenient distractions. Instead, we are left with stark reality – our tragedy as children of Adam. ‘Dust you are and to dust you shall return’ (Gen.3:19). ‘For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh’ (Ps.90:9).
