(See related sermon here.)

Yesterday’s online edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram included an article titled “Our Ritual Reformation: The rise of cremation reveals America’s changing idea of death,” which ran in the Washington Post a week earlier. A major shift has taken place, such that the majority of Americans who die are now cremated rather than buried, and it is projected that 4 out of 5 Americans will choose cremation by 2040.

There are numerous reasons that cremation did not become common place in America until recently, but the researchers are quick to point out that the significant rise in cremation follows a significant decline in Americans regularly attending a “house of worship”. This makes sense, as Christians in particular have seen burials as a way to testify to the reality of a physical, bodily resurrection on the last day. That’s not to say that cremation is wrong, as I do believe it’s permissible, but just that burial has been the preferred way to honor the bodies God has made and to anticipate resurrection.

For me, the much bigger concern is the decline in holding funeral/memorial services, which the practice of cremation has in some measure exacerbated. Speaking to this issue, the writer refers to our nation as “death-phobic” and says that some view cremation as “drive-through death” that can be performed without any rituals, but that, when there’s a body to be buried, the presence of the body “forces families to deal with death” rather than trying to ignore it.

As I note in every memorial service, an important part of honoring a life is to grieve when it is gone. Jesus taught us this truth when He wept over the death of His friend Lazarus in John 11. And as we read in Ecclesiastes 7:2 a few weeks ago, “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” A funeral-averse culture is an unwise culture, for it is only by forcing ourselves to look at the horror of death that we can find comfort in the One who suffered death to deliver us from the fear of death (Heb 2:14-15).

Blessings in Christ,

Pastor Evan