Sermon: Burial or Cremation, Does It Matter?

I should take a Bible and we're gonna turn open to Genesis two. It's a little less of a sermon tonight, a little more of a talk. I guess I do want to open up Genesis two verses seven through eight this evening and think about that as kind of our formative versus tonight we're doing this series on death and dying here in the evening services here in the fall to the end of the year. And tonight what we're looking at is burial or cremation.

Uh, is a topic, a subject that I think many of us have questions about. I often hear it as I'm especially sitting with family and days after a loved one has passed away. And so thought, look at this together. Look at it together here biblically, and then want to think about it as well, just the theological framework and practically as well tonight want to read verses seven and eight here from Genesis chapter two and let that be formative as we go through

and think about this subject together. So let me pray for us, our Father, we do pray that you would speak to us your truth this evening as we run to a lot of different passages, especially as we open up Genesis two, seven through eight here. We thank you that you are a God who created all things out of nothing in the space of six days. And for that, all things are from you and all things are through you and all things are to you.

We recognize that you as the creator and we as the creation, that we want to do all things to your praise and glory even as we think about living, even as we think about dying. So we pray that you would give us insights this evening that I would not speak beyond the scriptures, but that we would speak the scriptures this evening and that you would tend to each of our consciences by your spirit, bring home your truth and help to guide our lives even as we face death.

And we pray all of this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Genesis two verses seven through eight. It says the word of God. Let's back up though to we should back up to verse four, little context. These are the generations of the heaven and earth. When they were created in the day that the Lord God made the heaven, the earth and the heavens when no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had

yet sprung up for the Lord, God had not caused it to rain. Rain on the land and there was no man to work the ground and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. And then our two verses this evening, then the Lord God formed the man of dos from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east,

and there he put the man whom he had formed.

It says the word of God, thanks be to God. Amen. I wanna think about this a couple ways tonight. First, I want you to notice that here at the very outset, if we look at verse seven, that man is formed from the ground. You'll notice that the same is said of trees in the same as set of animals trees. In verse nine, the animals in verse 19 and the like is set of both of them as it's said of man and like the animals in verse 19.

So man in verse seven is said to be formed by God. That is the word actually means that he crafted, that he shaped, that he molded man. And you often see this as we go through the scriptures that God will be spoken of as the potter we are spoken of as the clay. You bring clay forth from the ground and the motor, the shaper, the crafter shapes that clay into a thing. We are crafted by him from the dost. In verse eight we see

that man was not only formed from the ground but rather that he was charged to work the ground. He, he was to care for the garden that was in the ground. There is a materiality, if you will, about mankind. He's formed from the ground and his life is about tending the ground. And then we see the cultural mandate that we're to fill the earth or were to fill the ground by being fruitful, multiplying across the face of the earth.

There's a real materiality about man, about mankind from the ground tend to the ground, populate the ground.

When Adam and Eve sin, it's not shocking then that part of the curves is that now man will be frustrated with the ground. He will work the ground, but he will work the ground by the sweat of his brow. And as he works the ground, there will be thorns and there will be thistles that populate the ground. And then as part of the curse, not only will he work that ground, but he will eventually return to the ground. He was taken from the dos

and now he's going to return to the dos. It was never meant to be, he was to have dominion over it. He was to work it. But because of sin and the penalty of sin, his death man returns to the dust. Second, I want you to notice that there is more to man than simply his body. There's a materiality about them. There is, there's a physicalness about him from the dust work, the dust populate the dust, but he's more than that.

Verse seven, God forms the man but is animated. When God breathes into his nostrils what is called the breath of life, it's then that man becomes a living creature. So he is more than just body, he's more than just materiality.

Third, it's important to note that both the body and this breath of God and man, what I will call the soul, make up a unity. There's quite a lot of debate in reform theology throughout its history. There's a lot of debate just in scholarly circles. What is man? Is man a duality? Is he body and soul? Are there three parts to man? Is he body, soul, and spirit? Well, what actually is he And I'm of the opinion that man is a living soul, that the soul

and the body together, they make up his entirety as a person, his essence.

This is not what you'll hear in current culture. That man is body and soul, one person, body and soul. That is his essence. That's what makes him up. That that kind of unity, that's not what you'll hear in popular culture to today. And much of that is because of Descartes. Descartes is greatly influenced modern culture. And he advocated a kind of two story understanding of mankind. There's the upper story and there is the lower story of our existence.

And this created a kind of dualism that many have summed up with calling it the the ghost in the machine. There's a ghost in the machine. The the upper story is the things of the mind. This is the realm of thinking, the realm of emotions, the realm of the will, the realm of consciousness, what we might call the soul. The lower story according to Descartes is the body. And thus Descartes could say is famous phrase, I think

therefore I am it. It's thinking that is the essence. It it's that immaterial. For him, personhood was simply tied up with the mind, the ability to think the body is nothing more than a house for the mind and it's just machinery to carry out the desires of the mind. That's all it is. The mind or the soul or the spirit. However one describes it for descartes is the genuine. That's the authentic self. That's what really matters.

And you can see how this opens up the door for a lot of things that we have in our culture today. Whether that is abortion, whether that is euthanasia, whether that is transgenderism,

but it's unchristian.

Is our human body an important part of who we are?

Does the body have dignity even as the soul has dignity? Do they have equal dignity, equal worth?

The answer is yes. From a biblical perspective, what proponents of abortion and euthanasia and even transgenderism want to do is, as Nancy Pearcy said, to demean the body to the sub personal level. They argue it is not our person, our body. It's just something to be manipulated. Who you truly are is what you think or what you feel. It's the immaterial. And the body is just something to be conformed. It's something to be experimented upon.

It's something that has to be moved into alignment with what you think or what you feel. It's even something that can be destroyed, utilized.

And so for many such proponents, it has no moral consequence about it. This is why some can get to the place that arguing that newborn babies when it's a failed abortion, a botched abortion as they will say that when that baby is born, that they have every right just then to snap the life out of that baby. Though it's born, they're human, but they're not yet persons. Their mind is what matters. And it's not yet developed to a sufficient degree for it

to qualify for that baby, to qualify for personhood. They're just human. But the Bible, it sees this differently. Mankind, men and women, we're not simply mind. We're not simply souls. God created us body and soul. That's what we are. And that means fourth, that at death when the soul and body are ruptured from one another, it's a horrific reality.

That is only true because of the penalty of sin. It was never meant to be this way. Your soul was never to be ripped from your body.

It was never to be separated from your body. And if we can say it this way, and this is my language, but there's an embarrassment in a way of the soul not being clothed with the body because that's not who we are. This is why in Romans eight Paul will say that all creation is growing for the revealing of the sons of God. And then he says this, not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly

for adoptions. As sons, the redemption of our bodies were psychosomatic unity as Anthony Homa, the reformed theologian of a previous century said. So it's odd that our bodies and our souls will be separate, and yet as Homa wrote, but we must acknowledge that according to biblical teaching, believers can exist temporarily in a state of provisional happiness apart from their present bodies during the time between death and resurrection.

The intermediate state is however incomplete and it's provisional, it's incomplete and it's simply provisional. Why? Because our bodies matter. Your soul matters. Your body matters. That's who you are. We're psychosomatic beings.

We are embodied souls, we're living souls. So it matters not only what happens to our souls, but what happens to our bodies. We, we have to think about it and we have to wrestle with it. So what, what does that have to say about cremation or burial?

I'm gonna put all my cards on the table. Say at the very beginning I would suggest you that our valuing of the body at least leads us the lean into burial rather than cremation. Now, you may differ with that by the time we get done with the evening that you're welcome to that. But I'm gonna lead you through a little bit of the reasoning and then try and answer some questions and then leave your conscience to wrestle with it.

I wanna see this throughout. First of all, the history of God's people. So let's begin with the great patriarchs. Let's begin with the foundation of the people of God. But even before we go there, when Abraham's dear wife Sarah dies in Genesis 23, he goes to great links to purchase property to bury her. Says in Genesis 23, 19 through 20, Abraham buried Sarah, his wife, in the cave of the field of M East of Mam Ray in the land of Canaan.

The field and the cave that is in it were made over to Abraham's property for a bearing place by the Hittites. Abraham himself, this man of faith, Genesis 25 9, was buried Isaac and Ishmael. His sons buried him in the cave and mcap in the field of Efron, the the son of Zohar, the Hitite east of Mam Ray, the field that Abraham had purchased for the Hittites. These there Abraham was buried with Sarah, his wife, and it continues with each of the patriarchs.

Isaac, Genesis 35, 29. And Isaac breathed his last and he died and was gathered to his people old and full of days, and his sons Es saw and Jacob buried him, Abraham, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, listen to Jacob's request. Listen to his profession in Genesis 49, 29 through 33. He's just blessed all of his sons. And then he commands them this, he said to them, this I'm to be gathered to my people, bury me with my father's in the cave that is in the field of EF rm.

The the Hittite in the cave that is in the field at Mcap, at the east of Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from the Eran, the Hittite to possesses a burying place there they buried Abraham and Sarah, his wife there. They buried Isaac and Rebecca, his wife. And there I buried Leah. The field and the cave that is in it were bought from the Hittites. When Jacob finished commanding his sons,

he drew up his feet into his bed and breathes his last. And he was gathered to his people, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the patriarchs of the faith, Joseph, this is a Genesis Ians. Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear saying, God will surely visit you and you shall carry up my bones from here. And Genesis ends this way. So Joseph died being 110 years old. They embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. And one might say, but this is, this is the patriarchs.

That's a, that's an old, old way. Long time ago, a different time. True. We could look though through the entire scriptures and we could see over 4,000 years that God's people are buried after buried, after buried, after buried. If we look at the New Testament, let's just skip ahead, we see the same in Matthew 1412, upon the murder of John the Baptist were told and his disciples came and took the body and buried it and they went

and told Jesus Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary in that great passage in John 11, what is the great foreshadowing of the resurrection to come? He is buried in John 11. But of course the great example and the greatest of arguments is that our Lord and Savior Jesus was buried. In fact, he encouraged it. Do you remember when the woman comes to him in the gospel of Mark and in Mark 14 she anoints him with that expensive ointment And he says, when some

of the others in the house complained, he said this, she has done a beautiful thing to me. She has done what she could. She has anointed my body, beha beforehand for burial. He expected and even appointed that he would be buried and he was buried.

This time burial was often done in two stages. The first stage of burial was laying the body at rest after having adorned it with spices and clean clothing. John, in his gospel, he details this. You'll remember that Joseph Athea and Nicodemus will come and they will ask for permission to take down Jesus' body. And as they take it down, they will then take all of these spices and all of these anointing oils. Scholars think it was probably somewhere around 70 pounds

of spices that then they adorned his body with and then they adorned him with linen claws. And Jesus was then laid to rest in Joseph's tomb and it was sealed with a large stone. We see the same in John 11 with the burial of Lazarus. He was laid to rest in a tomb. His hands and his feet were wrapped in linen. His face was covered with a claws. And then the second, second stage of the burial process occurred. Usually a year later at that mark, the bones

of the departed loved one were collected. They were placed in a small chest, a, a estuary. And as they were put in the estuary, then they would be left behind in that tomb or they would be taken and they would be buried in another piece of land. And of course, Jesus, he wasn't in there for a year. There was no second stage. He was simply buried. And that should at least have some kind of great weight upon our minds as we think upon

what is most proper. Paul says this in one Corinthians 15 verses three four, for I delivered to you as a first importance. What I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with scriptures. That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. And as Paul will point out over and over, we follow him in life, we follow him in death, we follow him into the tomb and we follow him in the resurrection

and we follow him in his ascension.

The early church also embraced burial and it actually opposed cremation in the early centuries. In fact, it's always been the practice of the church until really the modern era and especially in the early church, the argument was, look, this is what Greeks and Romans do. This is what pagans do. They burn the body but not us. We bury it.

Are there cases of burning the body of cremation in the scriptures? There are a couple. The first is Saul and his son Jonathan as his brothers and one Samuel 31 Sarah, that the Philistines, they have mutilated the body of Saul and Jonathan and his sons, they have cut off Saul's head. And you have these men that valiant, men were told of Israel that when at night and they took down their bodies and because their bodies were so mutilated, they burned them.

They then quote took their bones and buried them under the tams tree in Jish and passed and fasted for seven days. They heard what was done to them, to their bodies, which had been severely defiled and mutilated. Thus they burned them and yet they still buried their bones. A second is in Joshua seven, and that's that famous scene of Aiken who sinned greatly against the people of God by stealing and taking when they were not to.

And when Aiken was brought forward and he was shown to have stolen that cloak and the silver and the gold were told that Joshua says quote, why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord bring trouble on you today. And all Israel stoned him with stones and they, and they burned him with fire and stoned him with stone. Those are the only two examples I can see in scripture of people that were burned upon death. The one when the bodies were so mutilated the other,

when the offense was so great against the people of God that then their bodies were burned or cremated. What about arguments for cremation? Well, the first is that the body is going to turn into dust anyways. And that's exactly right. It is. And so people will say, well, as we cremate, we're just hastening it that that's true. Absolutely true. Our bodies will turn to dust as this fallen world affects it. But if I can, I would say that's a non-sequitur.

That's not actually an argument for cremation, that's just an observation. It's not an argument for,

the second argument is that it doesn't affect the resurrection. And that's also exactly right. It doesn't, it in no way affects the resurrection of the body In the early church. It's quite fascinating, the apologists in the early church in the second century. There are th second and third century. One of the, the early things that they had to argue against with with pagans was pagans were saying, listen, you, you Christians, everything is based upon the resurrection,

but how can there really be a resurrection? And they'd say, they'd throw out these extreme arguments. They'd say, well how about the man that dies at sea? And they throw his body into the ocean and some fish comes along and gobbles up part of his body and then another fish comes along and gobbles up that fish and another fish comes along and gobbles up that fish and another fish comes along, gobbles up that fish, and then some fishermen on the shore catches that fish

and eats it. Where's his body? How's that resurrected? And the apologists rightfully said, in those earliest centuries, they said, ah, that's silliness. If our God can create all things out of nothing, he can surely resurrect bodies from something.

He's a God of the miraculous.

It's absolutely true. Cremation does not affect resurrection. But again, that's not an argument for cremation, that's just an observation. It's not an argument to say that this is the better way.

A third, and I think maybe the most important in our day is the cost of burial. The argument is that it'll be poor stewardship to bury a body. That's a real argument for cremation. And I think that's one we really have to weigh. Gotta think about that and no, it's the motivation, it's the deciding factor for many families as I've sat with them. And it shouldn't be easily dismissed because the cost of burial is absolutely unreal in our day.

The average cost of funeral is looking up this week in Michigan in 2024 with burial was about $8,000. The average cost of a funeral with cremation was $7,000. However, the average cost of direct cremation, that is where you immediately send the body to, to be burned in a wooden casket without a funeral. It's only about $2,300 in Michigan. And so faithful Christians will rightfully say like, look, I'm gonna be a faithful steward with the resources

that God has given to me. The body's gonna be resurrected either way, whether it's cremated or whether it's buried. This seems like bad stewardship to spend this much money on burial. And I think it's a sound argument got away that

I've told Leah that when I die, I just want a pine box and nothing more throw me in the ground pine box, nothing more. Do as cheaply as you can.

Stewardship needs to be weighed. However, I also would ask a Christian family to consider the stewardship of two other things beyond money. There are other kinds of stewardship too.

We're to be good stewards with our money. Very true. But we're also to be good stewards of our bodies. And there's a reason that even in death, the body is handled with care. Why? Because it's not simply a shell to house the soul. It's us. My body is me.

It's the individual. We were created. Body and soul. There's a reason that Abraham goes to such lengths to see Sarah buried and to be buried in a proper and dignified way because her body matters.

Second, were to be good stewards of truth. And as as Christians, we testify not just by our words but by our actions. We aren't simply getting rid of a body and just trying to find out how to dispose it in the most economic way. That's not how we are to think.

We're testifying to the world that a person is soul and body and that matters. And so we have a funeral to give glory and praise to God as we gather together with family and friends and our church. And the question is this, does it more testify to our value of the body and more witness before a world that has lost its mind to have the body there and to simply have ashes?

I think that's something to weigh. It's not conclusive. You may argue, no, it doesn't. Okay, but I think it's something worth considering. You have to think about it.

Let me ask the great question. Is cremation immoral or sinful? No. You, you can't make that argument. You can't make that argument from the scriptures because the scriptures are not dogmatic about it is not explicit in saying this or that should be done with the body in death. I don't believe families who have chosen cremation for their loved one are in sin or they're doing that which is immoral. I do believe that there is Christian freedom here

and that your conscience, you have to wrestle with it. You think about your loved ones or you make your own end of life plans.

So I've done some funeral services for some of you, for others in this church where the body was cremated and I'm happy to do it,

but I want you to think about it.

I want you to truly weigh what is best. Cremation seems allowable to me. The question is this, but is it the best?

Is it the best way to show dignity and respect for the person, body and soul? Is it the best? Is it the best way to proclaim to a watching world? The importance of the human body? Is it the best? Is it the best way to reflect the reality of the resurrection? Again, is it the best? Is it the best way to follow Jesus in his life and in his death? Is it the best? Now, it's a matter of conscience. Do you wrestle with it? But I don't want you to just wrestle with what is convenient

and what saves our family the most money. But to wrestle through it biblically, to think through it, to think through theologically, to think through what is best as you're informed.

I for one, personally, believe burial is a better option. And you can disagree, but disagree. Being informed and being thoughtful and being prayerful.

Think about this way, uh, when Lee and I were first married, should have asked for permission, didn't think about this, but I'm gonna say it anyways. When Lee and I were first married, uh, we just, you know, I came to faith in a campus group, Lee and I got married and we just immediately went on birth control, which is what you did. We did. I didn't think about it. Didn't think through it, didn't think about biblically,

didn't think about theological, just did it.

Uh, I look back and it's one of my great regrets as a Christian that I just, I didn't have the thought to think about it. I may choose, you may choose to go on birth control. There are different birth controls that are not abortion, that are safe. You, you may think about it. I think you had to wrestle with that, with your conscience. But I look back and I think, well I didn't, I didn't think to think about it. It was just what you do in this culture.

And it was just assumed where we're young marrieds and oh, we gotta spend life together first and get to know each other first and then we'll figure out the child thing afterwards and we're just gonna do it.

I think the way that we started, Mary, I, I don't wanna see any of us face death that way. I want you to think about it. And I just fall into what the culture is doing because this makes sense. It's cheap option. It's what everybody's doing. I want you to think about it and weigh it theologically, biblically, be informed, be thoughtful, be prayerful.

I do want to say this, uh, and no a talk like this can keep guilt on for some that think, oh, well, did I make a mistake or did I, why didn't I think through this before? Or, oh, the pastor disagrees with me and well we just had that, that memorial service here or that funeral here where listen, it is up to each of our consciences. I truly believe that. Uh, don't look down on anybody. Don't think any of us should look down on anybody

for having a different view from us on this. I just want you to think about it and weigh it. 'cause regardless of what is done with our Christian bodies, we all have that same great promise and hope from one Corinthians 15. That truth is our truth. What is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. It's sown in dishonor. It is raised in power. It is sewn in natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. And then Paul seems

to exclaim a little later in one Corinthians 15, he says, behold in a moment and the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised in imperishable in this mortal body must put on immortality with the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality then shall come to pass. The saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death. Where is your victory? Oh, death.

Where is your sting thinks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. That is a promise for all who die in Christ regardless of what happens to your body. That's a promise sown, perishable, raised imperishable

forever promise or who die in Christ death. And the grave, no matter the grave, do not hold us. We have victory in Christ.

You may have questions afterwards and we have a whole chili supper to discuss it. Which Lauren? I told the second service, it's a kind of soup. So I don't know that I was wrong in the first service. Chili is a kind of soup. Alright, let me pray for us. Our Father, we thank you for the great hope that we have in the gospel of the resurrection. And our bodies are never for lost in Christ. And no matter how damaged, no matter how deteriorated,

no matter how much decay, no matter how scattered, no matter how seemingly lost, they are not lost in your eyes. There shall be a day when our bodies are raised from the grave and our souls are reunited to our bodies. We shall dwell as we were meant to be. Body, soul, living creatures before you for All of eternity. We thank you for the great hope of the resurrection. We thank you that death Has lost its sting. And we pray all of this in the strong name of Christ. Amen.