It Is Well with My Soul: Messages of Hope for the Bereaved

Preachers at funerals differ in approach. Some see the purpose of the sermon to be eulogy to heap so much praise that the deceased becomes unrecognizable to the mourners. Others regard praise of the departed as inappropriate as it may detract from the praise of Almighty God which they believe to be the sole purpose of all worship. Still others opt to say nothing at all arguing that it is disingenuous for one person to be lying in the pulpit while another is lying in the nave. In this book of funeral sermons preached throughout his forty-year ministry Harold Lewis offers Jesus message of the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection--hope for the dead hope for the church and hope for the world in which we live move and have our being. Funerals are about hope Harold Lewis writes in the introduction to this collection of funeral sermons. Poignant and instructive with a mixture of wit history and solid theology this compilation of sermons is a gift to the homiletic practitioner expert and novice alike who seeks to celebrate the life and faith of the deceased and convey to the bereaved why in the midst of death we can and do still have a living hope. --Debra Q. Bennett Rector Church of Our Saviour Akron Ohio Although I did not personally know any of the individuals whose lives are memorialized in these funeral sermons I feel as though I have somehow made their acquaintance because of the vivid portraits Harold Lewis has painted. . . . Lewis does more than celebrate who these people were in earthly life. Again and again he movingly affirms their and indeed our own mysterious participation in the eternal life of God. --Joseph Downing Thompson Jr. Virginia Theological Seminary Harold T. Lewis was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1971. He has served parishes and taught at seminaries in the United States England the West Indies and Africa. Among his publications are Christian Social Witness (2001); Elijahs Mantle: Pilgrimage Politics and Proclamation (2001); and The Recent Unpleasantness: Calvary Churchs Role in the Preservation of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Pittsburgh (2015). He holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Birmingham (UK).