1. QUESTION: When you die, will you be buried or be cremated?
2. Our answers are often pragmatic
2.1. What can we afford
2.2. Where did the decease want to be placed
2.2.1. ILL: Scattered in the rivers of Vietnam
2.3. Sometimes we want th deceased to be near still, urn in the home...
3. When it comes to death, our culture is either doesn't really know what to do, so the body, what to do with it, how to handle it, how to even think about it ... is very awkward, very strange.
3.1. Part of this is because in a secular society, where there is no hope of life after death, what does it matter what we do to teh body. The story is done, it's ended.
3.2. So predominantly, the burial / cremation, is a time for ...
3.2.1. say goodbye
3.2.2. closure
3.2.3. mourn
3.2.4. process
4. Now in the church, we don't do much better ...
4.1. We have very little care for what happens between death and resurrection, except that we expect to be in heaven - which is a good and true hope -
4.2. But we have very little value for the burial process ... we to think of it as a tool by which a person grieves and lets go and brings closure...
4.3. Part of this is trained in the fact that when we think of the gospel, we predominantly think about ...
4.3.1. Suffering
4.3.2. Cross
4.3.3. Resurrection
4.3.4. Rarely body
5. But the Suprising things is ...
5.1. in all 4 gospels, the burial of jesus is talked about
5.2. Paul - 1st missionary journey (Acts 13)
5.2.1. Acts 13:28–29 (ESV) — 28 And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29 And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.
5.3. Paul's summary - 1st importance
5.3.1. 1 Corinthians 15:3–4 (ESV) — 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: .... TRADITION ... THE CHURCH KEPT IT .... that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
5.4. Church carried this tradtion on - Apostles creed .. Church and creeds / Council of Constantinople (381)
5.4.1. We bleive .. in one Lord Jesus Christ … who came down from heaven, and was incarnate, was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered, and was buried.