The body lovers
At the dawn of
Christianity, when the pagan religions were still
dominating the world, the few Christians that were living in the Roman
Empire were called sometimes with the pejorative "body lovers". The
reason was not a predisposition to indulge in sin, which they were far
from, but the simple fact of taking good care
for the bodies of the loved ones that have passed away. The cult for
the deceased was well developed even from the first centuries and the
cemeteries had a great prominence, see the catacombs. The care for the
dead was was not expressed however just in the funerary rituals but
something even more profound was surfacing. For the pagan world, that
was already regarding with suspicion and misconception this small
"Jewish sect" the
most outrageous thing was that the Christian bodies were
committed to earth, instead of using the more common means
of disposing of the bodies at the times: cremation, the burning of the
bodies.
You may ask why I am "digging" this old story after 2000 years?
This theme is of out most importance nowadays because cremation gets
more and more acceptance even among Christian denominations. For the
sake of a quick profit funerary companies openly advertise cremation as
a quick and affordable procedure. Highway billboards reading "Total
cremation: 995$" are part of the daily commute. We cannot stop but
wonder what a partial cremation would be!
If I have to agree with one thing people say, funerals today are
not a
cheap endeavor; however money should not be the reason why people
should choose cremation over traditional burial. Especially since the
Church recommends only proper care and modest funerals, nothing
extravagant or out of the ordinary. Keeping the midway as always, the
Orthodox Church recommends the burial not just as a caprice but as a
true
expression of our belief in Christ and Resurrection, with deep
theological roots.
Going back to the beginning we recall that Man was shaped in God's image through a special act of creation. "God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."(Gen 2:7). All the other creatures were brought into existence with a simple "let there be", but God took the time to fashion man with His own hands into what St. Apostle Paul calls "the temple of the Holy Spirit"
(1Co 6:19. Man was created at once as a unique being, body and soul, a
dual unity: material and spiritual. St. Gregory of Nazianz comments: "God
mixed earth with spirit and created a being which is visible and
invisible being, ephemeral and everlasting, earthly and heavenly in the
same time".
To further emphasize the importance of the
body Christ Himself, the Son of God, chose to show Himself to us as a
Man, not as a spirit; being born in the world from a woman, like every
one of us. Christ also rose from the dead not as a spirit, but again
with the same body that was crucified and put into a tomb. His
resurrected body was real, although spiritualized, showing all the
marks of the wounds to St. Thomas and the Apostles to put to rest any
doubt.
From Christ's example we should realize that our bodies are important even after
our souls have departed from them. Committing the bodies into the
ground is to let God decide what is going to happen to them. Some will
be corrupted and will decay returning into the earth from which they
came, others, chosen by God, the saints, will go into incorruption. The
miracle working relics of the saints are the proof of the link between
our bodies and our souls. In the grace of God the bodies of the saints
remain in a mystical bond with their souls being able to continue to
perform miracles even after they have departed from this life.
If we believe in the second coming of Christ, the bodies are of
great importance. The bodies laid in the ground face the East waiting
to respond promptly to the calling of Christ, the Sun of righteousness,
at His second glorious coming. They wait to be reunited with their
souls so, as complete men again, body and soul, they will enter into
the Kingdom of heaven.
Today's society however, has a different agenda. Corrupted by
atheism and pagan beliefs, a significant part of the population has
stopped believing in a personal God. A recent national survey published
in Dallas Morning News (June 24th 2008) reveals that 30 percent of the
interviewed population, including many Christians, believe in an
impersonal God, an energy, a force, anything but a person. Many people
today also don't believe in afterlife, so for them death is the end of
the line, a point of no return. Bodies are therefore just a useless
reminiscence of what once man was, nothing more. Cremation therefore
comes just as a practical way of disposing of dead and useless organic
matter.
For us, Orthodox Christians however, death is not the end but is
a new beginning. In all funeral Orthodox services we never use the term
dead, but rather passed unto the Lord. The saints are commemorated
not on their birth date, but on the date of their death, the moment
when their earthly endeavors were accepted into the kingdom of heaven.
If we die with Christ, we believe we will be resurrected with Him, so
death does not frighten us.
Our bodies are decomposing by the natural process of decaying,
but this is only to destroy the corrupted nature of our bodies, so they
can rise again into incorruptibility. "So also the resurrection of
the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is
sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is
raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual
body." (1Co 15:42-44).
Cremation is nothing else but a willful desecration of God's
creation, a falling from grace, a rejection of a personal God that
Himself took the same human body we are so quick to destroy. This is
why the Church refuses a proper burial and memorial services to the
people that have chosen to be cremated. It is not a punishment, but a
sad recognition of a person cutting his or her ties with the Body of
Christ.
Committing the bodies to the ground according to our tradition
is in itself a declaration of faith. It is a belief in an incarnate
God, it is belief in the Resurrection and in the Kingdom to come. Amin.