EGN NEWS DESK
One of essentially the most shifting locations I’ve ever been to is a countryside churchyard in western Finland. I used to be in Finland for an ecumenical convention and people of us on the convention had gone to say morning prayer on the native Lutheran parish church. After the service I visited the church yard and was struck by row upon row of similar black gravestones with the names of the dead carved on them in gray. Seeing these grim black gravestones within the half mild of a November morning in Finland was intensely shifting.
When I requested who the dead have been, I used to be instructed that they have been the Finnish dead from the wars that Finland fought in opposition to the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany from 1939-1945. It was additionally defined to me that early in these wars the precept was established that ‘the boys can be introduced dwelling.’ Wherever Finnish servicemen died each effort was made to convey them dwelling to their parish church for a correct Christian burial.
If we ask why it was so vital to convey the boys dwelling, the reply is that it was as a result of Finland was a Christian nation and consequently accepted the traditional Christian custom that the our bodies of the dead needs to be handled with correct respect.
It was an identical reflection of the Christian custom that could possibly be seen on this nation when from 2007 -2011 the streets of Royal Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire have been again and again lined with those that wished to pay respect to the our bodies of the service personnel who had been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and who had been introduced dwelling through a flight to RAF Lyneham. People instinctively felt that the fallen needs to be handled with correct respect and that this meant displaying honour to their our bodies after they have been pushed by way of the city.
Was it not typically realised is that the Christian custom of honouring the our bodies of the dead was strongly countercultural when it first started again within the days of the Early Church. As the American theologian Thomas Long feedback in his e-book on Christian funerals, Accompany them with singing, drawing on the sooner work of Margaret Miles, probably the most weird types of early Christian exercise within the eyes of their Roman neighbours was:
‘… the Christian observe of burying the dead – not simply their very own dead, however the poor as properly. In Roman society, the our bodies of poor individuals, if left unattended, have been dumped in a standard pit, a paupers’ grave. Respectable Romans have been horrified by the inhumanity of this, and a few of them even fashioned burial societies to make sure that no particular person would go and not using a correct burial. However, regardless of the lofty rhetoric of those charitable organisations, no one truly needed to do the soiled work of burial, of dealing with a dead physique – besides the Christians. Not solely did they volunteer to bury the dead, Miles says, they ‘insisted on gathering the bones of those that have been executed full refusal to resign the Christian sect. They put these bones in a spot of honour and described them as succesful or possessing the sanctity of the residing holy particular person.’ Educated secular Romans have been satisfied that each one of this concern amongst Christians for our bodies might solely be the product of ignorance. One well-placed Roman, Miles stories, speculated that the Christians who have been prepared to bury the dead as an act of service have been certainly ‘fleeing from the sunshine,’ briefly, ignoring the enlightened knowledge however solely minds and souls have been non secular extra our bodies have been corrupt ‘baggage of dung’ and price nothing besides to be despised. In different phrases. Christian attitudes towards the physique have been as counter cultural in antiquity as they’re in the present day, if no more so.’
If we ask why the early Christians adopted this countercultural angle to the our bodies of the dead and the practices that went with it, the reply is, Long says, that they primarily based it on ‘their theology of creation and their expertise of Jesus Christ.’ Their theology of creation instructed them that God had created human our bodies and that like every thing else created by God they have been ‘excellent’ (Genesis 1:31). Their expertise of Jesus Christ instructed them that the our bodies of the Christian dead have everlasting worth as a result of, just like the physique of Jesus, they are going to at some point be raised to share life with God ceaselessly.
To put it one other manner, Christians have seen, and proceed to see the embodiment of human beings as a present from God that needs to be celebrated not solely throughout life, but in addition on the level of dying. As Long argues, which means that a Christian funeral is, or needs to be, a chunk of liturgical drama that has sure particular traits that hyperlink the funeral service to baptism:
‘When Christians, travelling alongside the baptismal path die, the corporate of the devoted who have been there to information them at the start are additionally there to hold them on the finish. In baptism, new Christians are ‘buried with Christ by baptism into dying’ they usually come up from the waters raised ‘to stroll in newness of life.’ In funerals these similar Christians, having travelled the pilgrim manner, are as soon as once more buried with Christ in dying within the certain confidence that they are going to be raised to new life. In baptism the devoted sang them into this new lifestyle; and now they collect round to sing them to God in dying. Just as they washed the brand new Christian within the waters of baptism, they now lovingly wash the physique of the deceased. Just as they adorned the newly baptised Christian with the clothes of Christ, they now adorn the deceased in garments becoming to satisfy God and maybe place a pall, an emblem of the clothes of baptism, over the coffin. As the Church has been travelling with the baptised saint on the highway of religion, the church now walks with the deceased on the final mile to the place of farewell.’
The Christian theology of human embodiment and the Christian understanding of the funeral as ritual drama that flows from it has three penalties that I feel Christians want to keep in mind in the present day.
The first consequence is that Christians have to problem a well-liked view of dying that fails to do justice to its actuality. This fashionable view of dying is mirrored in a well-known nameless funeral poem that runs as follows:
Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I’m not there, I don’t sleep.
I’m a thousand winds that blow.
I’m the diamond glints on snow.
I’m the daylight on ripened grain.
I’m the mild autumn rain.
When you awaken within the morning’s hush
I’m the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight.
I’m the tender stars that shine at night time.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I’m not there,
I didn’t die.
From a Christian perspective this poem is unsuitable on two factors. (a) The dead are most positively dead, simply as we affirm within the Creed that Jesus most positively died. (b) The dead haven’t been dissolved into the forces of nature in some type of limitless reincarnation. The dead, though dead, stay human. Their human souls have gone to be with God and to await the approaching of the brand new creation and their human stays, whether or not within the type of corpses or ashes, are in a particular place (or locations) the place they are going to stay till God reunites them with their souls on the final day.
The second consequence is {that a} Christian funeral service must be greater than only a time to recall the lifetime of the one that has died, vital although that is. Instead, it additionally must be an event by which thanks is given to God for the one that has died, each for his creating them, and for giving them new life in Christ. It must be an event by which the Christian hope of the resurrection of the dead and everlasting life is proclaimed. It must be an event by which an individual who has died is dedicated into God’s holding for the following stage of their Christian journey. Finally, it must be an event when the physique of the departed is interred or cremated – the place there’s a physique to be buried or cremated.
The third consequence is that, if in any respect doable, the physique of the dead must be current on the service. Their embodied presence as a part of the Christian neighborhood now takes the type of a dead physique and so their physique must be with their brothers and sisters in Christ for this level of their journey, simply as they have been there for his or her baptism and have been there week by week for Sunday worship and at different occasions. The Coptic Christian custom by which the physique of a dead Patriarch is seated in full regalia on the Patriarchal throne one final time to be greeted by the devoted could strike Western Christians as barely ghoulish, but it surely unmistakably makes the purpose in regards to the embodied presence of the Christian dead and is a lot better than viewing them as current solely by way of reminiscence or by the use of a photograph montage.
The fourth consequence is that the devoted ought to accompany the physique of the dead particular person all the way in which to interment or cremation. Their earthly journey doesn’t finish till they get to that time and their Christian brothers and sisters ought to go along with all of them the way in which.
The closing factor to notice is that each one that has been stated signifies that Christian should object to, and protest in opposition to, the observe of a bargain ‘direct cremation’ which is at present being usually marketed on tv. Having the dead taken away for an unattended cremation with the ashes being returned later goes in opposition to all of the theology and good Christian funeral observe I’ve simply outlined.
As Christians have at all times insisted, there must be a correct Christian funeral service by which, the place doable, the dead are current within the type of their physique and by which all the weather of a great funeral liturgy are additionally current. This is the final act of Christian service that Christians can present for a dead brother or sister within the Lord and it shouldn’t be denied them. It could price cash, however it’s cash that deserves to be spent. The put up funeral bun combat is non-compulsory, a correct Christian funeral service shouldn’t be.
