A Sermon For A Suicide
A Sermon For A Suicide
We are considering some of the toughest sermons you’ll ever have to make and present. If you want to catch up, start at this link. In this post we’ll consider the challenge of making a sermon for a suicide victim. This will truly be a challenge.
When A Person Chooses Suicide
I’ve done three sermons for people who committed suicide. One hung himself. Another shot himself. Another took an overdose. Each situation was different, but the overwhelming pain of the family was very similar. Let me share the story of one of those to set the stage for a difficult sermon.
The young man who hung himself was going through marital difficulties. I was trying to be pastor to husband and wife even as they went through separation. I talked with Gary several times by phone in the weeks prior to the suicide. He seemed to go up and down emotionally. He’d be up when he got the news of a new job. When he’s had a good conversation with his wife, he would be hopeful. But the next time we talked, he would be in the depth.
Then the news came that after a bad conversation with his wife, he looped a rope around his neck, tied the rope to a banister on the upstairs steps and jumped down, ending his life.
Things To Consider In A Sermon For A Suicide
There were several things in my mind and heart and I thought about this funeral message. There were the questions:
- Why did he do it?
- Am I partly to blame?
- Was he trying to get back at me?
- Where was Jesus?
The Preparation
In preparation, I talked to a man who had attempted suicide, but had failed. He went into treatment and recovered well from his depression. I asked him what it was like to see everything so black that it seemed that death was the only possible conclusion. In this helpful conversation he told me the following things:
You can’t really ask “why” about a suicide. To ask why, he said, assumes that a person can think through things logically and rationally. But that is not the case. Depression makes you lose perspective.
Secondly, he said that his pain was so great the only possible solution, he thought, was to end his life.
The Sermon
So what do you say in a sermon for a suicide victim? Here’s what I did
I began the sermon by acknowledging the shock that we all felt when we got the news. Then I shared what the person I interviewed with the insights mentioned above. I mentioned the guilt that some of us felt. I owned my own guilt. Would it have been different if I had called him more often?
Then I moved on to talk about death. I shared the process of death identified by Raymond Moody, about separating from the body, falling through a tunnel, and then meeting a “being of Light” with whom they reviewed their life. I talked about Gary’s profession of faith at an earlier time, and talked about the fact that Jesus died for the eternal life of Gary.
Consider in your message clarifying a statement made by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:16:
16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.
On the basis of this verse, the Catholic Church has declared that anyone who commits suicide automatically goes to hell. But this verse is about the church, and a person who destroys a church. It is not about an individual.
Turning to Personal
After suggesting that Gary met a loving, forgiving Savior, I turned to the survivors. What should we be feeling?
I told the story of the little girl named Mary, who was sent to the neighborhood market to get some bread for dinner. Mary didn’t return on time. The family came skipping into the room just as dinner was about to begin.
The mother asked, “Where were you? You’re late!”
Mary explained that she had a met a friend on the way home, and Sue’s precious doll had just been broken during play.
Mary’s mother said, “Oh, so you stayed around to help Sue fix her doll?”
“Oh no!” replied Mary. “I just helped her cry.”
This is the Jesus that we see in John 11, where Jesus wept when he saw the pain of those mourning Lazarus’ death.
Conclusion
A sermon for a suicide victim is a tough one, no doubt. But it once again is an opportunity to present the gospel.
Here’s a link to another sermon for your further reflection.
