Burial or Cremation?

How do you want your body treated after you breathe your last? The decision is lingering in the back of most of our minds, while others of us need to decide today on behalf of someone we love. It it ok to be cremated? Is it worth the extra cost to be buried? I hope in this article to give both pastoral and biblical advice on it. I’ll walk through a few principles and then tell you what my own plans are, in hopes that it helps you with your own decisions.  

My short answer is that burying our dead has been, for most believers since Genesis, a statement of faith in the coming resurrection of the dead–but not a commanded statement. It means something, but God doesn’t command us to do it. 

Let me get there by first looking for biblical commands. Examining Israel’s Law reveals something interesting: God did not require Israel to bury their dead, though they almost always did. There are many laws about dead bodies, but almost all of them are about the ceremonial uncleanliness of the body. The dead body was unclean. If you touched it, you were unclean. And there were ways to handle that. Of these commands, the closest we get to a burial command is this one:

“And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. (Deut 21:22–23)

Here burial is assumed, but the law is to do it quickly and not leave a body hanging on a tree. Even here the burial itself does not seem to be the focus so much as the urgency to do it quickly. 

God did, however, forbid Israel from many of the practices the nations around them kept toward their dead. Israel could not cut themselves or make themselves bald for the dead (Lev 19:28, Deut 14:1) or try to talk to the dead (Deut 18:1). I think this is important, because the Lord does say things like this but does not say anything like, “do not embalm yourselves like the Pharoah from which I rescued you,” or “do not burn your dead like the heathen nations around you.” He forbids some of the foreign practices, but not embalming or cremation. 

Surveying the rest of the Bible, we find no commands to bury our dead or against cremating them. And we are reminded that, no matter what you do to a dead body, it will turn to dust (Ecc 3:20). Yet we do see that almost all our heroes were buried. And we see through history that a culture’s shared beliefs about the afterlife tend to show in their way they treat their dead. For instance, the Egyptians embalmed their Pharaohs with their (still living) servants, so that their servants could tend to the Pharoah in the afterlife. What you do with your body says something about what you think happens next. This is why God’s people buried their dead–in hope that they would rise. 

Interestingly, though, not every faithful person in the Bible was buried upon their death. Joseph was actually embalmed–and this was also an act of faith (Gen 50:26). He was convinced that God would bring his descendants back from Egypt to Canaan again, so he had his remains embalmed so that they could be carried back to Canaan whenever that day came. 

I add all this up to show that what we do with our bodies after we die matters and says something about what we believe. Often this is in contrast to the peoples around us. 

So what do Christians believe that might encourage us to treat our dead differently than those around us do? First, we believe that the human body–even your body–matters. Your body is not just a container for the “real you.” It is part of the real you. God created human bodies to image his glory, and even to dwell in himself forever. Yes, of all the things God could dwell in forever (a Temple, a mountain, a supernova) his plan is to dwell in the human body of Jesus Christ forever. If ever there were a reason to treat the human body like it’s a big deal, I think that would be it. In resurrected form, it is good enough even for God. 

We also believe that your body is really you. To care for it is to care for yourself, and to care for your loved one’s remains is to care for them. When Mary goes to Jesus’s tomb to care for his body, and doesn’t find it there, she tells Peter, “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb” (John 20:2). Not “the Lord’s remains,” but “the Lord.” In a passage we heard preached recently, Abraham buried “Sarah,” not “Sarah’s body” (Gen 23:19). This pattern is consistent through the Bible. Your body isn’t the cardboard Amazon box that the real product is inside of; it’s part of the real thing. Your spirit departs from it upon death, but it is still part of you even as it decays and waits to be restored. 

This is different from some of our neighbors, who might say they are “in the wrong body” or might look inside themselves for “the real me.” Some around us would divorce themselves from their bodies, but we do not. We embrace our manhood and womanhood, our height and skin tone, even our awkward noses and asymmetrical toes as part of “the real me.” 

Second, we believe our bodies are coming back from the dead (probably with better noses). I was taught as a young Methodist to recite “I believe . . . in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, Amen.” When I learned in my 20’s what that meant, it changed everything for me. I stopped saying, “Just throw my body overboard to feed the sharks when I’m done with it.” I started joking, “Bury me under six feet of concrete so I can bust through it when Jesus comes back!” What a glorious hope, that we will rise in perfected and glorious bodies when Jesus returns, bodies like the one Jesus will be in forever, and so wonderful that if we saw them now we might be tempted to worship them. 

Though we have never been commanded to, most believers through history have buried their dead as a way of saying these two things. “This person’s body is worth caring for and is coming back.” 

So what should we do? Make sure that whatever requests you make about your own body and the way you handle your believing loved ones’ bodies say the same things. Let them proclaim the truth of the Gospel forever, even while their body rests. This does not have to be through burial, but it should be clear one way or another. 

I can remember visiting a historic church in another country, which had on its wall a plaque. The plaque gave the name of a church member who had been lost at sea and the simple words from Revelation 20:13, “and the sea gave up its dead.” To the right I looked and saw the stained-glass window picturing Jesus’s return, and my bones shook. This young man did not get a proper burial, but he got what I long for, a chance to proclaim the glories of Jesus for hundreds of years. 

Whatever you do, let it proclaim the dignity of the human body and the glorious promise of your resurrection. 

For my part, I would prefer to be buried so that I can join with Abraham, David, and so many who for millennia have proclaimed their hope in their burial. But the practical factors may not line up that way, and that’s just fine. The main thing is that my body be dignified and the story point forward to the resurrection. If it’s necessary that I be cremated, I would not like my ashes scattered across the many places I’ve been. Why? Because my story isn’t really about were I’ve been. It’s about where I’m going. I would not like a special tree planted near me just so my remains would feed it, because I won’t be living on through any plants I fertilize. I will be living on through the power of the one who holds the keys to death and Hades, who will feed me from the tree of life. If I do get a gravestone, I would like it to clearly say what will happen at that site when Jesus returns.

If I have given my life to proclaiming that, I might as well let my death proclaim it too. 

The point is, these statements we make with our bodies after our death really do say something. Whatever you do, let it make the same statement in your death that you are endeavoring to make with your life. 

While we’re thinking about my story (and about yours), I’m thankful to God that our stories overlap. What a thought, that you and I will know each other forever. Until then, let us walk the narrow road together and proclaim our great dignity and hope with our lives. If God allows, I look forward to seeing you in-person next Sunday.