CREMATION?
As best as I can tell,
there is no Bible passage that attempts to give guidelines regarding acceptable
burial procedures. No matter which burial practices one follows, the results
are always the same: “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes." Job reiterated the
final disposition of the body in Job 34:14-15: “If it were his intention and he
withdrew his spirit and breath, all mankind would perish together and
man would return to the dust."
The ancient Egyptians
embalmed bodies to delay decay and to prepare for the afterlife.
In first-century Israel,
bodies were buried on the day of death! A 60-foot length of one-foot-wide cloth
was wrapped around and around the deceased while all sorts of spices were
sprinkled in the wrappings in order to reduce the stench of decay. The bodies
were then placed in caves or stone sepulchers.
In more recent times, it's
customary to embalm a body before burial in order to delay decay long enough
for the family to mourn the deceased and to give time for
out-of-town friends and relatives to arrive before the funeral.
Burial procedures are
rapidly changing in today’s culture. Many people are turning to cremation as
the body disposition of choice. One of the primary drivers in this change is
the astronomical cost of having a "traditional funeral." The costs
for embalming, buying a casket and purchasing a piece of ground to put the
casket in is cost prohibitive for too many families.
The only long-term
difference between embalming and cremation is time. Cremation just speeds up
the process.
You may do well to
investigate why your family doesn't approve of your cremation choice. Perhaps
they consider cremation as not Biblical. However, as we have seen, cremation is
never a Biblical issue.
Perhaps they are worried
that when Jesus returns at the Rapture and the bodies of long-dead Christians
are resurrected and transformed into spiritual bodies — that you won’t have a
body to resurrect. Frankly, since the first century, most (if not all) bodies
are now dust anyway. Since God is big enough to produce a world-wide
resurrection, He certainly can make a spiritual body from only a speck of dust
-- or less.
Perhaps your family wants
you in a casket-filled grave so they can have a place for remembering you and
your lives together. This desire is natural and normal.
Recently, I've observed
families foregoing the expensive caskets and burial plots by choosing
cremation. They then purchase a small cemetery plot in which to bury the ashes.
Others scatter the ashes over a prearranged place meaningful to the deceased.
Some save a few ashes in a small locket as a token reminder of their loved one.
Some ashes reside in burial urns over fireplace mantles.
With all that being said,
remember that your body is still your body. Discuss openly with your family
that you want to dispose of your body in the way most comfortable to you. In
your case, that is cremation.
My mother just traded in
her outdoor burial plot for an indoor mausoleum space. She decided that she was
uncomfortable with the idea that she would be down in the ground with the
“worms and maggots!” Then, she got to worrying that above ground a tornado
could hit the mausoleum! She wanted to change back; but, she finally decided
that worms were worse than tornadoes.
If you are more
comfortable with cremation then I recommend that you do so.
Personally, I want my body
cremated. I've picked out four golf courses where I want my family to spread my
ashes. I think.
Recently, our church
erected a columbarium with small niches for burial urns of ashes. It's on an
outdoor wall of the new chapel. Recently, Julie and I exhumed our first
daughter's ashes from Evergreen Cemetery and placed them in an urn in the niche
in the far-left top row of the columbarium. I'm thinking about changing my
mind. I just might have my ashes placed in the niche with Jessie.
After all, the chapel wall
sounds like a great final resting place while we wait for the sounds of the
resurrection trumpet. Jessie and I could even hold hands together on the way
up!
Psalm 103:15-17 gives us a
great perspective on cremation -- or on any other burial practice:
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.
But from everlasting to
everlasting
The LORD's love is with those who fear him,
And his righteousness with
their children's children…
- Dr. Roger Barrier, Retired Senior Teaching Pastor,
Casas Church, Tucson, AZ
