Dust to dust
09/03/13 05:36
It is natural and, I believe right, to think about death during the season of Lent. We live in a society that has many mistaken notions bout death. According to psychologists, death is one of the top fears that people experience. But we rarely talk about death in a calm and sensible manner. People avoid the topic, even when attending funerals. There is something about death and dying that we seek to avoid. But death is a universal human phenomenon. We will all one day die from this life. And being alive means experiencing, at some point or another, the grief that comes from the death of a loved one. It is a topic that we do well to confront if, for no other reason, to practice for the bigger conversations we need to have.
This year our church has a discussion group that is working its way through the five wishes document. 5 Wishes is a combined durable power of attorney for health care decisions, living will, and advance directive for family members. It gives a person the opportunity to leave written instructions about five important topics:
The conversations have, so far, been rich and meaningful and non-threatening. People seem eager to express their thoughts and wishes and to discuss the things that they don’t understand. One of the topics that has already come up and that will come up again is how a person wants the physical remains of their body to be dealt with after their death. The conversation usually takes the form of whether cremation or burial is the best. The answer is that cremation and burial are two options, but one is not necessarily better than the other. I am sometimes asked, as I am about other subjects, “What does the Bible teach about it?” The Bible doesn’t really teach anything about cremation vs burial to my knowledge. Burial was more common in Biblical times and cremation doesn’t seem to be a big issue.
Sometimes people believe that the phrase “ashes to ashes and dust to dust” comes directly from the Bible and ask me to tell them where it appears. The phrase, however, isn’t a direct quote from the bible, but rather an adaptation of a Biblical concept. Giving instructions to Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, God says, “In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Genesis 3:19). I use a part of that phrase as a reminder when imposing ashes on Ash Wednesday, “Remember that from dust you have come and to dust you will return.”
I think that what people are looking for is something more like the words that come from the Book of Common Prayer for the time of committal:
Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother (sister) here departed, we therefore commit his (her) body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.”
That prayer is simplified and shortened a bit in most contemporary Christian burial services, but it often contains the line, “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
When making a decision about a funeral there are more choices than simply cremation or burial. If cremation is chosen, the family will also need to decide whether or not to have the body embalmed. If it isn’t embalmed, the body needs to be cremated quickly. In most cases where there will be a public viewing of the body it is embalmed and prepared for the viewing. It is possible, in some areas, to have a burial without embalming, but this must be done within a short period of time after the death. Rules vary state by state and sometimes cemetery by cemetery.
But there is one funerary practice that I do not understand. Some societies and cultures attempt to preserve the body for permanent viewing. The practice of mummification in ancient Egypt is quite well known in contemporary times and could well have been known to Biblical writers. The topic comes to mind because I read that there will be an attempt to preserve the body of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela for permanent display. “We have decided to prepare the body of our ‘Comandante President,’ to embalm it so that it remains open for all time for the people,” said Vice President Nicolas Maduro. They have a glass-topped casket that will be placed in a glass tomb in a military museum.
I don’t think I would prefer to become a museum display.
There are others who have been preserved in a similar manner. Vladimir Lenin’s body is still preserved in the former Soviet Union. The tomb, near the Kremlin is kept at a steady 61 degrees and a regimen of mild bleaching and soaking in glycerol and potassium acetate keep the body looking fresh. Wife of Argentinian president Juan Peron, Eva Peron had the moisture in her body replaced with wax. Her body isn’t quite complete. It is missing a finger that was removed when the junta overthrew her husband. They cut off the finger to see if the body was a fake. The body of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was on display next to Lenin from 1953 to 1961. Then it was buried during a period of “de-Stalinization.” Mao Zedong lies on permanent display in a Memorial Hall in Tiananmen Square. Former North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim John Il have their bodies embalmed and displayed. Ferdinand Marcos died in 1989 and his body was kept and returned to the Philippines in 1993 where it is on display in an airtight glass box in a crypt.
I confess I don’t understand these practices. I know that part of loving someone is loving his or her body as well as the rest of that person, but when death occurs, it seems to me that it is time to allow God’s natural processes to occur. God can use the elements of our bodies for new creation.
God, however, is infinitely patient. In God’s eyes, these “permanent” displays are only temporary.
This year our church has a discussion group that is working its way through the five wishes document. 5 Wishes is a combined durable power of attorney for health care decisions, living will, and advance directive for family members. It gives a person the opportunity to leave written instructions about five important topics:
- The person I want to make care decisions for me when I can’t.
2 The kind of medical treatment I want or don’t want.
3 How comfortable I want to be.
4 How I want people to treat me.
5 What I want my loved ones to know.
The conversations have, so far, been rich and meaningful and non-threatening. People seem eager to express their thoughts and wishes and to discuss the things that they don’t understand. One of the topics that has already come up and that will come up again is how a person wants the physical remains of their body to be dealt with after their death. The conversation usually takes the form of whether cremation or burial is the best. The answer is that cremation and burial are two options, but one is not necessarily better than the other. I am sometimes asked, as I am about other subjects, “What does the Bible teach about it?” The Bible doesn’t really teach anything about cremation vs burial to my knowledge. Burial was more common in Biblical times and cremation doesn’t seem to be a big issue.
Sometimes people believe that the phrase “ashes to ashes and dust to dust” comes directly from the Bible and ask me to tell them where it appears. The phrase, however, isn’t a direct quote from the bible, but rather an adaptation of a Biblical concept. Giving instructions to Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, God says, “In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Genesis 3:19). I use a part of that phrase as a reminder when imposing ashes on Ash Wednesday, “Remember that from dust you have come and to dust you will return.”
I think that what people are looking for is something more like the words that come from the Book of Common Prayer for the time of committal:
Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother (sister) here departed, we therefore commit his (her) body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.”
That prayer is simplified and shortened a bit in most contemporary Christian burial services, but it often contains the line, “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
When making a decision about a funeral there are more choices than simply cremation or burial. If cremation is chosen, the family will also need to decide whether or not to have the body embalmed. If it isn’t embalmed, the body needs to be cremated quickly. In most cases where there will be a public viewing of the body it is embalmed and prepared for the viewing. It is possible, in some areas, to have a burial without embalming, but this must be done within a short period of time after the death. Rules vary state by state and sometimes cemetery by cemetery.
But there is one funerary practice that I do not understand. Some societies and cultures attempt to preserve the body for permanent viewing. The practice of mummification in ancient Egypt is quite well known in contemporary times and could well have been known to Biblical writers. The topic comes to mind because I read that there will be an attempt to preserve the body of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela for permanent display. “We have decided to prepare the body of our ‘Comandante President,’ to embalm it so that it remains open for all time for the people,” said Vice President Nicolas Maduro. They have a glass-topped casket that will be placed in a glass tomb in a military museum.
I don’t think I would prefer to become a museum display.
There are others who have been preserved in a similar manner. Vladimir Lenin’s body is still preserved in the former Soviet Union. The tomb, near the Kremlin is kept at a steady 61 degrees and a regimen of mild bleaching and soaking in glycerol and potassium acetate keep the body looking fresh. Wife of Argentinian president Juan Peron, Eva Peron had the moisture in her body replaced with wax. Her body isn’t quite complete. It is missing a finger that was removed when the junta overthrew her husband. They cut off the finger to see if the body was a fake. The body of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was on display next to Lenin from 1953 to 1961. Then it was buried during a period of “de-Stalinization.” Mao Zedong lies on permanent display in a Memorial Hall in Tiananmen Square. Former North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim John Il have their bodies embalmed and displayed. Ferdinand Marcos died in 1989 and his body was kept and returned to the Philippines in 1993 where it is on display in an airtight glass box in a crypt.
I confess I don’t understand these practices. I know that part of loving someone is loving his or her body as well as the rest of that person, but when death occurs, it seems to me that it is time to allow God’s natural processes to occur. God can use the elements of our bodies for new creation.
God, however, is infinitely patient. In God’s eyes, these “permanent” displays are only temporary.