WARNING PREACHY…
I shouldn’t
be writing this right now, I just drank a bottle of wine. Ok, not really a bottle, my wife nursed a
half-glass. It wasn’t anywhere near 11% ABV
or I would have went to sleep a half bottle ago, but I’m relaxed enough to not care
if anyone knows that I’ve been imbibing.
I did a
funeral today. It was my first Romanian
Orthodox funeral. They called on me
because the woman was cremated, and so her Romanian Orthodox church would not do
her funeral. It was fun because I got to
do the service of the Colac bread before the memorial meal. It was a nice ceremony but I’m off point.
The point
I am trying to make is that there is not a problem about being cremated. I am positive that those who disagree with me
will supply a number of bible passages that prove otherwise, so I will provide
my reasoning and let you decide.
Jesus died
on the Cross for us while we were yet sinners. (Romans 5:8)
This means
Jesus died for us… He took the shame of
the Cross upon Himself, for you and me, and He had nails pounded into His hands
or wrists and feet, voluntarily, in order to set us free from the curse of sin
and death. But since He did this I do
not now believe that He has become so particular that the remains of our earthly
bodies’ actually matter.
When He
died for us, He died while we were in
a state of unrepentant sin. We were
actively in the hood or in the bar and living our lives ignorant and separate of Him. We were looking at the stars and our
horoscopes expecting the world to work according to common knowledge of the
pagan traditions and the ruler of the air.
But Jesus went to the Cross, in order to redeem us all from the
death and sin that originally separated us from our Creator.
God went
to great lengths to set us free, even sacrificing His own Son, Himself
Emmanuel, on the Cross.
And since
He did this, are we now to believe that He would be so petty as to reject those
of us who have been cremated? That
everyone who has ever been lost at sea, everyone who did not get out of the
burning home in time, and everyone who has been destroyed in the myriad of other
human tragedies is now rejected by the blood that Jesus shed in order to redeem
mankind?
Some may
decide that God really is that petty, but I cannot believe that this is
true. I cannot believe for a moment that
the sacrifice of Jesus, and the shedding of His blood, is not so eternal that
it doesn't overcomes every human tragedy and instance of human destruction.
The blood
of Jesus covers over the spiritual sin of mankind, and so it also must cover
the entire physical tragedy of humanity as well. The tipping point for me is the question
between the power of the blood vs the power of this physical realm.
I guess
the point is that I am confident in the
blood and not the doctrines of
men. And I would encourage you to know
the Savior who died, was buried, and resurrected from the grave, so that you
may have His confidence as well.
I could be wrong in this, but I am at total peace having hope in the
blood that my Savior so graciously shed for me.
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