Quoting Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller of Hope Lutheran Church in Aurora, Colorado, from his November 2 appearance on Issues, Etc.:That body that your soul lived in all through your life is the same body that Jesus will raise on the last day, stick your soul back into it, and you’ll be a body and soul together forever in the resurrection. This is really the governing thought behind Christian burial, is how do we confess best the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of the Christian. And the way we can do that is by treating the body with respect. Luther said that you know all the patriarchs, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all these old guys, David, et cetera, they built these tombs, and they did that to confess their faith in the resurrection, because they knew that God wasn’t done with their bodies. But these bodies that are now corrupt with sin would be raised imperishable and would live forever before the face of God. So we want to treat the body of a Christian with care in order to confess our faith in the resurrection.
2 comments:
I haven't listened to this one yet. It sounds good. I've read books against cremation and I agree that body burial is the best confession of the resurrection. My concern with the discussion is this: we often talk about how nasty and destructive creamation is (and rightly so). But we neglect to talk about the embalming process, which destroys the created body in other ways.
It seems that the farther away we get from wrapping the body up and placing it in the ground the farther away we get from respecting the wages of sin among us and looking for the resurrection.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Many of my parishioners are life-long lutherans who plan on being cremated. But they tell me, "i'm not denying the resurrction, pastor. It's just cheaper." ;)
It seems to me that the disposition of your body after you're dead is an adiaphoron. I do think it is the best confession if you're buried, but not required by Scripture. I like your comment that "the farther away we get from wrapping the body up and placing it in the ground the farther away we get from respecting the wages of sin among us and looking for the resurrection." At the same time, once your dead, your body is going to decay no matter what you do with it, it's just a matter of how rapidly (unless of course you're Lenin).
I'm pretty sure part of the argument for embalming is for prevention of the spread of disease.
It seems that everyone should make their own decision on this issue, in light of their own conscience. I suppose it'd be possible to take the argument for a natural burial too far as well, turning it into pietism.
I visited a graveyard when I was in Cabo. Quite different from most in the U.S. Well kept, masses of colorful flowers, tons of crosses, more above ground mausoleums. I couldn't help thinking that they take the resurrection seriously.
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