Well, I did not get to attend the Queen’s funeral after all. Instead, I had to settle for getting up at four in the morning to watch part of it on television. I have to say that the British know how to do a funeral. Besides the ten days of grieving, the funeral itself was a spectacle to behold. The solemnity, the precision, and the display of faith were all lovely.

            As I watched the funeral, I was also following along on a website that explained everything that was going on. Of the many things that caught my attention was a section called “lessons.” I wondered how it was that the Anglican tradition included lessons during a funeral. I also wondered if this was reserved for just the funeral of a sovereign, or if this was part of every funeral. As I watched I was amazed to see that the “lessons” were passages from Sacred Scripture. The lessons were what we call the readings.

            What most amazed me about this, is that we often think of Sacred Scripture as ancient texts that help us to know our history, where we have come from, but have little to offer us in our complex and technologically advanced world. Sadly, this means that we often look elsewhere for solutions to problems, we just go along to get along, we are content to just listen to those who posit the easiest way, rather than delving into the wisdom that the Sacred Scriptures offer to is in abundance.

            For example, the ancient Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament of the Bible, reveal to us, even today, our need for a savior. The theme of God reaching out to us, God making a covenant with his people is repeated over and over in the pages of these ancient texts. From these “old” stories we learn of God’s faithfulness to His people. We learn, in the retelling of God’s interaction with His chosen people, of God’s love, God’s patience, God’s mercy and justice. In these lessons we come to know why God has sent his son into the world. Amid the conflict and mess of these ancient stories we learn of God’s desire for his children to live forever in paradise.

            Often enough, we find ourselves wondering how we are to pray, or for what we should pray. We think that what we are going through is the worst things ever. We allow our “terminal uniqueness” to convince us that no one has ever had it as bad as we have it. To learn otherwise we need only look to the Psalms. In these prayers we find praise of God for the good things he has done for us. We hear the lamentations of a people who have been exiled from their homeland. In the Psalms we learn how people who are in pain, people who are grieving, people who are celebrating pray to God. In the Psalms we meet people who teach us the power of prayer. The Psalms are powerful lessons on how to pray, when to pray, and for what we should pray.

            Of course, the Gospels are the true story of the enlightenment. They tell us of how Jesus, the light of the world, comes to us not to condemn us but to restore to us the dignity that was ours when we were created in the image and likeness of God. In the recounting of the ministry of Jesus we learn the rights and responsibilities of those who share abundantly in the salvation gained for us by Jesus Christ. The lessons of Jesus, lessons about love, mercy, patience, humility, and faithfulness are as important to our time as they were to Jesus’s original audience.

            Finally, in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles sent to the new Christian communities, we learn how these infant communities lived the good news of the salvation. In these letters we learn that these new communities had many of the same problems we experience today, and we are taught solutions that build up and grow the faith of these communities and their members.

            The bottom line is that the lessons of Sacred Scripture, more than a recounting of history, remind us that we who are beloved children of God have a roadmap that reveals to us the way to eternal life. It is for these and for so many other reasons that we should be familiar with the whole of Sacred Scripture. Being steeped in the word of God gives us the tools and the courage we need to live well in every situation. Being steeped in the Sacred Scriptures teaches us how to turn the spark of faith, given to us at baptism, into a raging fire that has the power to dispel darkness and to reveal the Kingdom of God at hand.