Death and Burial

Practicing Hope in the Resurrection - Part 1

Introduction to this Series

It’s all too easy to remain in the abstract when trying to articulate something like a theology of embodiment. We can argue for the need to recover a biblical view of the body, we can study the Scriptures that talk about the body, and we can discuss the historic doctrines of the church, but unless these things change the way we actually live in our bodies—our customs and practices—they will be fruitless. Faith without works is dead, James tells us. So too is doctrine without application. If our theology does not define the way we live, we do not truly believe it. 

Whether or not we realize it, the way we use our bodies and the customs in which we participate communicate our theological beliefs about the body. Sometimes the message is overt, and sometimes it is much more subtle. In this series, which I’ve entitled “Practicing Hope in the Resurrection,” I’m going to look at some common customs whose messages about the body we may not have considered. Many of the ideas I hope to flesh out are inspired by suggestions made by John Kleinig in his recent book Wonderfully Made: A Protestant Theology of the Body. In Wonderfully Made, Kleinig lists a number of practical ways by which contemporary Christians can reclaim a vision of the body that keeps the resurrection in mind. My goal in this series is to explore these suggestions and offer some questions to consider. 

The Significance of Christian Funerals

Over the past couple of years, attending funerals has become a priority for my family. I’m not entirely sure how it happened; somehow my husband and I just decided that we wanted this to be a part of our family culture. Not only do we want to grieve with our grieving friends and family members—we want our children to grow up knowing the gravity of death and the glory of the promised resurrection for believers. Funerals are one of the most tangible ways we remember these things. It’s easy to forget about the curse of death when you’re young and busy and prospering. Funerals remind the saints of sin’s curse and draw our attention back to the gospel of Jesus. For this reason, my husband and I have come to appreciate the opportunity to attend, participate in, and serve at funerals.

This year, after attending several funerals—many of whom were for people I didn’t know personally—I started noticing the subtle ways in which the various funeral customs communicated the theological beliefs of the deceased person’s family and friends. Whether or not we intend to do so, the way we care for, talk about, and remember the body after death makes a symbolic statement about death and resurrection. If we truly want to reclaim a biblical vision of the body, we must start considering what our funerals are symbolizing. 

Why Christians Bury

The decision to bury or cremate is the most obvious way we communicate our theology of the body—or our lack of consideration of such a theology—at funerals. In contemporary Christian culture, this decision has generally become a non-issue. Fewer and fewer Christians are considering the symbolism of this decision, especially when cost is a concern. But it’s important to recognize that Christians have historically buried the dead instead of cremated, and that this tradition is rooted in a biblical understanding of the body. 

One of the central truths that burial proclaims is the promised resurrection of the body. Death does not mark the end of the body; our bodies are awaiting salvation and glorification on the day of Jesus Christ. As Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 15:42, the perishable body that is sown will be raised as an imperishable body. While we do not fully know what this “imperishable” body will look like, we nevertheless can’t deny that the body will continue to be a key part of our nature as humans even after death. We will not be disembodied souls in the new creation, but, like Jesus after his resurrection, will have new, glorified bodies that are no longer subject to the curse.

Cremation unintentionally obscures the bodily resurrection by doing away with the body after death, thereby presenting an image of salvation in which the body does not matter. This practice is better representative of Eastern religions that hold that death frees us from the body by freeing us from the cycle of reincarnation. Such a belief holds the body in a kind of contempt we never see in Scripture. It is precisely because of the anticipated resurrection of the body that the body continues to matter after death. 

The body is an essential part of what it means to be made in the image of God. Even though we know that God does not have a body, God condemns the destruction of the body on account of the fact that “God made man in his own image” (Gen 9:6). Moreover, we know that Jesus, as an embodied man, is the “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb 1:3). It is for this reason that the bodily resurrection is essential to the gospel: the image of God cannot be represented without the body. To burn or discard the body is to deny its significance in the story of salvation. 

It seems that cremation has become accepted among contemporary Christians in part because of a lack of robust teaching regarding the bodily resurrection. Most Christians who choose to be cremated or who affirm a family member’s desire to be cremated simply have not thought through the theological symbolism of such an act. If we truly want to bear witness to the truth of the resurrection, though, we must pay attention to the contrasting pictures of the body presented by cremation and burial. 

Some may object that cremation is simply more practical because of its affordability. Perhaps the church can help with this. Might there be a way for churches or parachurch organizations to provide funding for proper Christian burials? Could there be room in the church budget for end-of-life care for its members? Might there even be value in reviving the tradition of church cemeteries, not only to help with costs, but also to remind the body of Christ of our mortality? Rather than allowing her members to be cremated purely for practical reasons, perhaps the church could find creative solutions for those whose families cannot afford burial. 

Even when the main concern is practicality, however, we ought to keep in mind the church’s responsibility to train the people of God in biblical anthropology. To this end, burial and its corresponding funeral customs are some of the most practical teaching tools. In my next post, I will discuss some of the other ways we can practice anticipating the resurrection through our funeral customs.