What happens when someone dies?
I don’t mean the part where we go to heaven, or when we rise again. I mean the logistics of what happens here on earth when a person dies. That’s what Abraham was faced with in our reading today. His wife, Sarah, had died and there were things that had to be attended to.
Her body needed to be prepared. A time of grieving was to be observed. A grave had to be provided.
Much of chapter 23 is the business transaction between Abraham and the Hittites who owned the land that God had promised to Abraham’s descendants. It’s an interesting study in culture as they haggle for a price. It all sounds very courteous – and on the surface it is – but beneath the surface there was real business being done here and real money changed hands so that Abraham can bury his wife.
The same is true today. When we die our loved ones will contact a funeral home, we will likely be embalmed, a plot will be purchased, a service held, and a clergyman paid for his services. Recently I saw a receipt from a funeral home. The cost was in the thousands of dollars.
Why do we spend so much to take care of the dead? Why can’t we do like a song I once heard where a man requested to be buried beneath his tomato plants to fertilize them?
Some of what we do at the time of death is cultural; some of it has to do with the law. (In Michigan if a person’s body is not buried 72 hours after death it must be embalmed.) However, as Christians, when we face death we also see an opportunity to confess the hope we have within us. Christ has come. He died for our sins. He rose from the dead. He is the first-fruit from the dead, and we will follow him through the grave to resurrected life.
When a Christian dies it is an opportunity to once again confess the very core of what we believe. As it says in Romans 6:23: The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. When I die it will be because I am a sinner. I don’t want there to be any nonsense about knowing I went to heaven because of anything I did. I will die because I have sinned. At the same time, I face my death in hope and certainty that Jesus has paid for my sin and I will physically rise from the dead one day and live with Him as a glorious new creation.
Funerals are, in a way, our last opportunity to point to Christ as our Savior. As our bodies lay there the pastor should speak of Jesus and what He did for us. He should lay out God’s promises of salvation for all who believe. He should use our lives as an example of God’s blessings poured out as well as the severity of sin’s consequence. And he should hold out clearly the hope of the resurrection. This is why at the committal the pastor says, “May God the Father who created this body; God the Son, who by His blood redeemed this body; may God the Holy Spirit who by Holy Baptism sanctified this body to be His temple, keep these remains to the day of the resurrection of all flesh.”
Father, thank you for creating me and giving me life. Lord Jesus, thank you for redeeming me by your blood. Holy Spirit, thank you for making me holy. Help me to live in this faith until the day I die. Amen.
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