O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?

This week I performed my third funeral service since I began ministry here in Peru. The funeral was for an 80-year-old man named Victor Raul. He was the father of one of our leaders here at Flamingo Road Church in Lima.

Victor Raul's wake and funeral also caused me to compare and contrast the wake and funeral customs in Peru and in the USA.

Victor Raul died on Thursday morning. His wake was on Thursday night. His funeral was on Friday. It is common in Peru to have the wake on the same day that someone dies, if the person dies in the morning, or the very next day if the person dies in the evening.

In the USA, there is usually a wait of 2-3 days before there is a wake, in order to inform family and friends, put an obituary in the newspaper, make all the funeral arrangements, and allow out-of-towners time to travel. The funeral is usually held the day after the wake.

In Peru, it is common to have the burial service at the cemetery within 24 hours of someone's passing. 6 tuxedo-clad, white-gloved black men carry the coffin on their shoulders from the church to the waiting hearse, and then again from the hearse to the burial site at the cemetery. They do not use their hands to carry the coffin; they just balance it on their shoulders.

At the burial site, a brief service is held in front of the open grave, then the coffin is lowered into the earth, and immediately thereafter the cemetery workers shovel dirt over the lowered coffin, replace the grass over the burial site, and put the headstone in place.

In the USA, generally there is a brief service at the cemetery, but the coffin is left above-ground as the mourners immediately leave to go to a post-funeral meal.

In Peru, the immediate shoveling of dirt right onto the lowered coffin, the immediate replacement of grass over the burial site, and the immediate placement of the headstone over the burial site may appear to be overly swift and even jarring in nature to a non-native. It does, however, serve as a vivid reminder of the words of David in Psalm 103:15-16 (NIV), "As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more."