In Scott Brown's sermon 'What Does Burial Mean to You?', the burial of Jesus is explored as a significant event in the narrative of the gospel, alongside His death and resurrection. Brown examines the actions of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who took Jesus' body for burial, emphasizing their roles as secret disciples who stepped forward boldly. The sermon highlights the burial as the final step in Jesus' humiliation and a moment filled with prophetic fulfillment. Brown contrasts the traditional Christian practice of burial with the modern trend of cremation, arguing that burial honors the body as a creation of God, destined for resurrection. He explains that the burial, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are central to understanding the gospel message, which is not about self-help, but about salvation through Christ's sacrifice. The sermon encourages Christians to see burial as a testimony to the hope of resurrection, a theme grounded in biblical prophecy and the promise of eternal life.

Please open your Bibles to John chapter 19 and find verse 38 and I'm going to read through chapter 20 verse 10. John 19 verse 38. After this, Joseph of Arimathea being a disciple of Jesus but secretly for fear of the Jews asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus and Pilate gave him permission so he came and took the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. Then they took the body of Jesus and bound it in strips of linen with spices as the custom of the Jews is to bury.

Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So there they laid Jesus because of the Jews preparation day for the tomb was nearby. Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Then she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved and said to them, they've taken away the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they've laid him. Peter therefore went out and the other disciple and were going to the tomb.

So they both ran together and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. And he, stooping down, looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there. Yet he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb, and he saw the linen cloths lying there and the handkerchief that had been around his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself. Then the other disciple who came to the tomb first went in also and he saw and believed for as yet they did not know the scripture that he must rise again from the dead.

Then the disciples went away again to their own homes. Let's pray. Oh Lord, we pray that you would give us understanding of these events, of the burial, and of the discovery of the resurrection, that you would help us to think the way that you think about all these things, amen. Please be seated. We focus in this passage of scripture on the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We'll find ourselves focusing more on the burial today, finishing up John 19. We'll be in the resurrection for a few weeks here in the Gospel of John so this is sort of a first deposit. We'll lightly touch over it and then move more deeply in as we continue our messages in the Gospel of John. And I want to ask you know what does burial mean to you? Nothing that we experience in this world is meaningless.

Everything that God has created has meaning. Every tree has meaning, every river has meaning, The light of the sun has meaning, everything has meaning, and actually burial also has meaning. We often just think of burial in terms of ourselves or our loved ones, but these verses here cover both the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We're really working through what is really a picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ and we get that picture in 1st Corinthians 15 verses 3 and 4 and we have this statement that really summarizes all of what we've been contemplating in the gospel of John really for a few months. We first focused on the suffering and then the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and then his death, that was last week, we focused exclusively on his death, and today his burial, and that he rose again.

Well, it's summarized in 1 Corinthians 15, verse three. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. So we've been in the section of John that covers the suffering, the crucifixion, the death, now the burial and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and his Jesus Christ post-resurrection appearances. And of course, last week we focused on death. That was the operative word that we wanted to communicate, that he died and why did he die?

Why did Jesus Christ die? And we answered that question from the Word of God. And Christ didn't really primarily die because you were worse so much. He died because your sins were so great that He needed to die for your sins. That you and I are worse, so unjust, so depraved, so evil, so dominated by sin, so in bondage to the devil, so dead to him, so deserving of death that he had to die for us.

He died in our place. And so Christ's death summarizes God's love for sinners. Romans 5, eight speaks of it. But God demonstrates his own love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So we tried to demonstrate that last week as 1st Peter 318 says that Christ died for sins, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.

So we focused on the death of Christ last week. Now we turn to the burial of Christ and the resurrection And we'll spend most of our time in this message on the burial of Christ and then touch on the resurrection and then focus on the resurrection more fully in the weeks to come in the Gospel of John as we move through John 20 and then 21. But I want us to meditate this morning on the promises that reside in the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ and that promise is summarized in really what for many many years since I was a boy has been one of my favorite verses. I've loved to say it and recite its meaning. Psalm 16, 10, and 11.

You will not leave my soul in the grave or in she-all, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Now that verse has its focus on the grave, on the fact that God will not leave his beloved in the grave. And so the burial of Christ has many meanings in the word of God.

If you want to learn about the burial of Christ, you should go to the Bible. And one thing that is very clear about the burial of Jesus Christ is that it really is the final step in the humiliation of Christ. We have walked through many of the aspects of the humiliation of Jesus Christ. His treatment in the trials, the slapping, the crown of thorns, the mocking, the, you know, being nailed to a cross and mocked there and slandered there. We've spoken really of the humiliation of Jesus Christ in his trials and his crucifixion.

Even after he died, he was speared by the brutal hearts of the Roman police there. But now, this is really his final humiliation in his burial that he was laid in a grave. And Isaiah chapter 53 says that he would have had a criminal's burial but not really. That's not that's not that wasn't God's plan but he was buried with the rich. So God had a plan for the very burial of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, in the burial narrative, John, the apostle, focuses on five people. If you read the other Gospels there were more, a couple of other extra women than John mentions. But there are five who witnessed the crucifixion and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and that really will be our focus this morning. Those five are Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John. Those are the personalities that we find in our text here.

And we meet these people and what are they thinking? They're heartbroken. They absolutely have lost what was most precious to them. They really are a picture of a dejected people who've lost something massive, something so great, and they have suffered a tremendous loss. And you know, some of you have suffered great losses.

Maybe you're suffering a great loss now or maybe it's a smaller loss but every person here is suffering some kind of loss at this moment and you might even find yourself dejected And I pray that understanding the burial of Jesus Christ would lift you out of your dejection because I think that's really one of the great messages here. And I was reading to Deborah last night before I went to bed in Psalm 147, 2 and this really stuck out to me. The Lord gathers together the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. So the description of What happened and how the apostles interpreted the burial of Jesus Christ is a helpful, it's a very powerful and clarifying lesson about how to understand the gospel and how to communicate the gospel.

What is the gospel of Jesus Christ? We've spent many weeks speaking of it, you know, from the perspective of the suffering and the crucifixion and the death and now the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ. And So we'll look here in this passage to see what happened. Now as time goes on, as we continue to contemplate the resurrection in messages that will happen subsequent to this, we'll speak about the apostolic teaching about the resurrection in the coming weeks. What we find here is just a description of what happened.

But if you continue to read the New Testament, what happened has massively encouraging meanings. And it's very important that we first of all understand the true gospel of Jesus Christ and that we communicate the true gospel. And the true gospel is a gospel of crucifixion that Christ took the punishment that you deserved. It's a gospel of crucifixion. Jesus Christ was crucified in your place.

It's a gospel of death, and that Christ died the death that we deserved because of the greatness of our sin. He died because our sin was so great that a sacrifice so great was needed. And it's a gospel of burial that Christ bears the finality of our punishment, The final prospect of dying and being laid in the grave. People are thinking about dying today perhaps more than ever and people have always died and all of us are going to die. 100% of us are going to die and of course there's tremendous fear of death but a Christian should never fear death if he really understands the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But Jesus was buried and he was buried in order to teach us about the non-finality of our physical death. And it's a gospel of resurrection as well. That Christ rose from the grave, and for those who believe in Jesus Christ, they are raised with him to everlasting life. His resurrection is our resurrection. It's the promise of our resurrection.

And so the gospel that we preach is a gospel of crucifixion and death and burial and resurrection. And So this is what we find here. The gospel message isn't primarily a self-help message. It's not primarily get your life together. It's that Jesus Christ died for your sins and he'll start putting you together in time.

But you're so broken that you need to repent and believe in the gospel. So the gospel is not a self-help message. It's not a message for success. It's not primarily a message for self-improvement. It's really your only hope for any improvement and that is that God who sent his son died for your sins and he broke the power of sin and now he's going and he's he has actually raised you to eternal life and you step from death into life.

It's a message of life that really begins with God's wrath towards sinners. The first thing that you need to tell people who are converted is the bad news and the bad news is that they're dead in their trespasses and sins. But if they don't understand that and believe that, then they won't be able to have those pleasures forevermore that the psalmist speaks about. But we've been saying this a few times in this section, is that our salvation is based on what Jesus did. Our salvation is based on a historical person who lived at a particular time where particular political leaders were there.

You can go to the place today and find the places where he walked. He's a historical figure. He's real. And he's not giving us abstract principles of life. He's giving us real things that happened in real history.

And the Apostle Paul explained what happened in Colossians 1 verse 13. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of his love in whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins." So all this to say Jesus died and lived again and frankly that should help us correlate that fact with what other ways of salvation and other religious leaders offer. Other religious leaders lived and died. The Lord Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again and he lives again today and he lives in the hearts of those who love him. So at the same time you know these these people here are dejected and it's you know I was thinking about this whole matter of dejection and how it's always true that whenever you gather the church together there's always somebody who's brokenhearted always and that's just a reality of our lives.

But I was thinking about the fact that our church is called Hope Baptist Church. Hope Baptist Church. And we're in a text of Scripture that really defines why we are named hope Baptist Church. When we named this church we were thinking of many passages of scripture but one of them primarily was 1st Peter 1 chapter 3 or verse 3 which reads like this, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God therefore hope Baptist Church and that's really what we designed to communicate is the hope that there is in Jesus Christ and in him alone. Well, the promise that resides in the burial of Christ is so clearly communicated in a prophecy in the Old Testament, particularly in Psalm 16.

I've already quoted it. You will not leave my soul in the grave, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life in your presence as fullness of joy at your right hand or pleasures forevermore." So now as we move through this burial narrative We turn to two wealthy men and they have names. They were two friends that who had been collaborating They were onlookers who became disciples all four gospels speak of Joseph of Arimathea And we encounter him in verse 38 after this Joseph of Arimathea being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate gave him permission, So he came and took the body of Jesus.

So Joseph of Arimathea has been a secret disciple. He's been afraid of being kicked out of the synagogue and all the other repercussions that happen when you turn to Jesus Christ. And he goes to Pilate and he says would you give me permission to have the body and Pilate says yes take the body and you know who was this man John of course refers to him as a disciple a follower of Jesus Christ that's what a disciple is But the other gospel writers say a lot more about Joseph of Arimathea than does John. For example, in Matthew we learn that he was a rich man. We also learn that Pilate gave him the body, gave him permission to take the body.

In Mark, we learn that he was a prominent council member, he was a religious leader who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God. He, his heart was toward God, his heart was right. And yet he still had fears about turning to Jesus Christ. That happens to almost everyone. And in Mark it says that he came to Pilate taking courage.

So he'd had enough of his closet Christianity. And he finally decided, I'm going to come out and I'm going to ask Pilate for the body of Jesus. In Luke, We learn that he was a good and a just man. And Luke also says that he did not consent to their decision to crucify Jesus. So he was one of the ones, very much like Nicodemus, who was saying, we should not crucify this man.

He understood that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, even though he was a secret Christian. But it says that he was fearful here and we have to, you know, think about this whole matter of being ashamed or being fearful of being known as a Christian. You know Jesus said in Luke 9, whoever is ashamed when he comes in his own glory and in his father's and of the holy angels, he will be ashamed of him. So there's this matter of being ashamed of Jesus Christ. Jesus spoke of loving the praises of men.

And if you name the name of Jesus Christ as your savior, you will have fewer praises for men in this world. Don't become a Christian if you want praises for men because you'll lose lots of praises for men. But I wanna suggest that there are two kinds of shame here. One is a damning shame. One is a perpetual, heartless shame of Jesus Christ.

A complete shame of being identified with him. But there's another kind of shame. I think that's the kind of shame that we see in Joseph of Arimathea. And that is the shame that people normally experience in the weakness of their flesh. It has to do with the fear of man.

One of the greatest projects in the heart of man is to relieve the heart of man from the fear of man. And we spend our whole lives trying to escape the fear of man and to realize that God is our Creator and we should fear God. And So you have this weakness of the flesh. We saw Peter already deny the Lord Jesus Christ three times. Was he damned?

No. He was suffering from the weaknesses of the flesh from the fear of man. I think it's a helpful thing that we're encountering right now. I'm just expecting that some of us are really struggling with the fear of man. That's why we're here.

God has us in this text and you're here and you've been fearing man far too much. And have you been shrinking back when you shouldn't have shrunk back? So we know why he was afraid. In John chapter 12 we were told, we already covered this earlier in this exposition of John, we read these words, even among the rulers many believed in him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him lest they be put out of the synagogue. So the fear was a real fear, it was legitimate in that sense.

But there is such a thing as secret disciples. Eventually they will finally break like Joseph of Arimathea did. And his courage rises and he comes and proclaims himself to be a follower of Jesus Christ. It's very interesting that the men who have been really bold so far they fled and the secret disciples have come forth. Isn't that interesting?

What in the world? Every man serves in the strength that God supplies. So he came and took the body of Jesus and of course this is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. I already read one of them in Psalms 16, 10, and 11, but in Isaiah 53, 9 you find this burial a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Isaiah 53, 9 reads, and they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death.

Amazing. The rulers wanted to dishonor Jesus Christ and make his grave like the wicked. Now the Romans were burning people, they weren't burying them primarily. But this burial of Jesus Christ is part of the confession of faith in the Apostles' Creed, which we're familiar with, that Christ was crucified, dead and buried. Well, we're hanging on this whole matter of buried.

And I think we should just recognize that Jesus Christ was treated the way that we deserve to be treated, to be crucified and dead and buried and left to rot in the grave. That's what we deserved. Now imagine what it would have been like to take down the body of Jesus. He had been abused, he was bloody, he had beaten. How Joseph of Arimathea got Jesus hands and feet past those nails, nobody knows.

But just picture Joseph of Arimathea for a minute. In some ways he's kind of signed his death sentence. He's he signed his warrant to be kicked out of the synagogue and lose his social status. And there he is, he's pulling the hands of Jesus off the nails on the cross. What a moment that must have been to be so exposed like that.

One writer said that he carried the body of divinity. What a remarkable moment. And of course there was some urgency to get these bodies off the cross. We spoke about that last week that they had maybe two, maybe two and a half hours to get the bodies down before this high Sabbath day. But I want us to just ponder on something here regarding Joseph of Arimathea.

Notice how God was redirecting his life. The other gospel writers tell us that he carved a tomb and it was a new tomb and he was a man of means. He had resources and he built a tomb for his family that was based on the resources that he had and it was an expensive way to be buried. But you think about this man, you know, he was born, he grows up, he becomes a Pharisee, and somehow he became wealthy. He goes out and he buys a plot of land, a beautiful plot of land, it's in a garden actually.

So he has this beautiful place, it's all ready, he's thinking ahead about his family and he carves out this tomb in the rock, getting it ready, he's providing for his family. And he was thoughtful about it, He had considered it and dedicated resources to it. He would like to bury his wife and his family members there, as well as himself. And all Those plans probably never came to pass. Because God had a different plan, God was redirecting the trajectory of his life.

He did a lot of things, but he didn't know exactly why he was doing a lot of things. And that's true, true with all of us. We make plans for ourselves and we never know how God is going to use them. God designs the detours. You know, it just makes me think, you know, I never dreamed I'd live in North Carolina.

I grew up in Southern California. I spent the first half of my life there and the second half here. But the South was the last place I ever wanted to move, frankly, and here I am. God moves you around in ways that you really can't plan. You might, it's good to plan, I'm not against planning, but I think we have to recognize that God designs the detours.

And so he, he buys a plot of land in a beautiful garden area and he carves out a tomb. And the plan that he originally had for it didn't come to pass. And that happens with us. There's a song that it reminds me of. God works in mysterious ways.

Here's the words. God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. And Then the song goes on and it says if you're fearful Take courage don't judge the outward appearances. Don't judge the calamity too soon and You that those famous lines behind a frowning providence.

He hides a smiling face. In other words, God is working. It looks really hard, but God is smiling. He's taking you somewhere and He's glorifying Himself. The song talks about His purpose will unfold, the bitterness will turn to sweetness, You know, he'll make it plain in his own time, in his own will.

I'm quoting the words to the song. And maybe you've lost something that you really set your heart on. Maybe you had a plan and it got diverted and you're on a detour. Don't worry. God is designing your life.

God is moving and He never stops. So this is Joseph of Arimathea and And then we turn to Nicodemus in verse 39. And Nicodemus who at first came to Jesus by night, now he's referring to John chapter three, where Nicodemus came to Jesus by night under the cover of night. And Jesus tells him, you must be born again. He thought about that.

And I think he was born again. At some point he became born again. And he wants to take care of the body of Jesus just like his friend, Joseph of Arimathea. And there was a garden there. And Nicodemus gathers together spices.

It says here a hundred pounds. It's translated into modern weights and measures. It was about 75 pounds in our day. But imagine that the body would be packed with 75 pounds of these spices. That's a lot.

You know, it was interesting. I had a bunch of the kids in our church, I showed them the graveyard of my property this week. And I was telling them about them, about these 75 pounds. And I pointed to a little girl I said well it was about Enough pounds is what you weigh. I said who weighs about 75 pounds here and I was just talking to them about this passage as a passage of scripture and what was happening here But the But the body would be packed with these spices and wrapped up.

The Jews did not embalm. They perfumed in a sense and they wrapped you up and there was a garden there. Now There's so much detail in these narratives. Matthew Henry speaks of the garden. I'm just gonna read you a few words of how Matthew Henry thinks about this garden.

In the garden of Eden, death, and the grave first received their power. And now in a garden they are conquered, disarmed and triumphed over. In a garden Christ began his passion and from a garden he would rise and begin his exaltation. Well, it's a very beautiful language. But the Greeks and the Romans typically did not bury their dead, they were cremated.

The Jews were practicing something completely foreign to Rome, recognize that. The Jews buried their dead according to the tradition of their fathers. They did not burn their dead and of course Christian tradition has been the same until recent times, but bodies were cared for, not burned. They were carefully buried. And this really is the testimony of the treatment of the dead body and the burial of that body.

And I think there are many ways to understand why. I'll read Philippians 3, 20, where we read about this transformation of our bodies, like the body matters in Christianity. For our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior the Lord Jesus Christ Who will transform our lowly body? Yes, your body will be transformed that it may be conformed to his glorious body according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things to himself so there is a transformation of your lowly body your body the way it is now will be transformed. Your body matters.

God gave you your body, it's either male or female, and your body is something that is a work of God. Now there are There are exemplary testimonies of burials in the Bible. One of the most famous, of course, is Sarah, who was buried by Abraham, who went to great expense to bury her, and then Abraham was buried next to her in the same grave. We read stories of the burials of Rachel and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. We read that the Lord actually buried Moses himself on Mount Pisgah somewhere.

There were the burials of Joshua and Samuel and David and Solomon and Hezekiah and John the Baptist and the burial of Stephen. So burial is the way of the godly. In John 19 and 20 here we have the burial of Jesus and it was prophesied 600 years before in Isaiah 53 verse 9. So the burial, the burial itself was prophesied. It's not, I don't think we should just ignore the burial of Jesus Christ.

In the biblical narratives bodies are buried and that's why in most graveyards the headstones or the bodies are facing to the east. I was telling the kids about this this last week. Why? Why are the headstones facing the east? And the answer is to face the Lord when He raises their bodies in the final resurrection.

This is why most graveyards are constructed that way. Now you'll find some that aren't. But Matthew 24 27 speaks of it, for as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the West, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be." And so Christians have taken that and thought, well we're going to bury our dead facing the east because that's where the lightning is going to flash from. And the dead are going to be raised out of the graves. And so burial really is the explicit practice of the Bible and that's why that's why David says in Psalm 16 you will not leave my soul in Sheol which is the grave you will not leave my soul in Sheol, which is the grave.

You will not leave my soul there in the grave. And you won't allow your Holy One to see corruption. You'll show me the path of life in your presence as fullness of joy. And your right hand are pleasures forevermore. So now in contrast, you know, in my lifetime, we've really seen the rise of of cremation.

In America the dramatic change has taken place really just in the in the last half a century. And now today most people are no longer buried in America. Cremations have outnumbered burials over the past ten years and it's a very new trend. Like when I was born about three percent of the burials were cremations and now it's seventy five percent and maybe more than seventy five percent just in the span of my own lifetime. There's been a dramatic change in that.

Timothy George, a theologian, tells us that the first cremation took place in America in 1876 and it was accompanied by readings from Charles Darwin and the Hindu scriptures, the Vedas. So for many years, very, very few people have chosen cremation except liberals and free thinkers. But that seems to be changing. And I believe that one reason Christians handle their dead differently is rooted in this view of the body. Christians have a high view of the body.

Christians regard their bodies. They get good care of their bodies. Their bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. Man is made male and female and we regard our bodies which God created. In fact our whole roles in life are designed by the way our bodies were made by God as male and female.

So, you know, in Christianity, you don't view yourself like a disembodied soul. You're not just spirit. You're also a body. Our bodies matter. Our bodies are vessels that reflect the glory of God.

Paul says that to the Corinthian church. He's teaching them about the body. And we're actually commanded by God to take care of our bodies. And so our Savior, our Savior was not just a spirit force, he was a man. And he had a body.

And in fact at the beginning of the Gospel of John, we read those words, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth. And so you had this mixture of his body and his truth and his grace. You had both in the Lord Jesus Christ. He lived, He died, he walked among us, he was crucified, and he was buried. And that same body was resurrected three days later in order to teach us something about the gospel.

And so God has chosen our bodies to be embodiments of his spirit. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. That's why Paul said, therefore glorify God in your body in 1st Corinthians 6 19. Glorify God in your body. Your body is God's possession.

You can't do with it whatever you want. And we learned from the Bible that your body is not completely destroyed. It's actually a blood-bought body that will be resurrected on that day. And your body will exist for all eternity. That's what the Bible says, that you're not actually done with your body, you're going to get a new body.

And what Christianity teaches is that in the grave, the body experiences an intermediate state. Your body rests in the ground. And That's why Christian graves are kept in cemeteries. Now that word cemetery really means sleeping places and They are places where the body resides until the resurrection. That's why we have graveyards Bodies were placed in the ground to recognize that they are in an interim state, a place of quote-unquote sleep until that day of resurrection and no one knows the day and the hour.

So you know we live in a culture where where the burning of bodies has become the most common practice But the burning of a body is never stated in a positive way in the Bible. I think that we should say that cremation at minimum is without biblical support. You don't find a positive principle for it. The arguments for creation is that there's no command against it and that it's cheaper. It is cheaper.

Maybe that's the driving factor or Maybe it's philosophical. Maybe it's the view of the body. I'm not sure. I don't know what's driving it. It's less labor intensive.

It's hygienic. It's environmentally clean. In fact, there's a whole clean environmental burial movement. And you can be buried now in an organic green bag. Cost seems to be the chief driving factor.

I would just caution us to be drawn in to cremation because of cost. You know, what about the burning of the body? In times of plague and war and mass death, it might just be necessary to do something like that or mass graves where there's rampant disease. I'm not sure. There may be in situations like that the most reasonable way to deal with lots and lots of dead bodies, but that's not the norm.

That's not where we're living in normal life. You know, funerals can be very expensive. I'm not in favor of creating a church culture where there's an expectation for expensive weddings and funerals. I think they're okay. I just don't think there should be a pressure for it.

And, you know, I don't think we should be coercing people to spend massive amounts of money for things that were really meant to be family affairs and burials and weddings are meant to be family affairs. So okay the church is a counterculture. The church doesn't do what all the Gentiles do and we should think biblically about death and the handling of the dead and particularly burial. The passage that explained the body and the soul, the burial text in the Bible and the other places just make me think that we should be burying our dead. And I think there are various passages of scripture that speak to it.

1 Thessalonians 523 brings together a truth about the body, now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our life and our death and even our burial is given to us to testify to the life and the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Philippians 3 we learn that he will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to his glorious body according to the working which he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." So to picture the life and the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ should have an influence on us. And so your body that is in that grave it will be changed and it will be resurrected And God will treat your body well. Now your body might be torn up, you know, in a terrible disaster or a car wreck.

You might, your body might be burned in a building. Your body might be eaten by an animal, but the God who puts your body together is able to bring your body back together. So we shouldn't think well you know his body was burned we'll never see that again. No, God will bring that body back. And he'll bring it back in its glorified state.

And because you will be given a glorious body, and you'll live in that body for all eternity. And in that body, you'll have an irrepressible capacity for everlasting joy. You'll be so thankful, you'll be so happy. I have a friend two years ago who died in a helicopter crash in the Pacific Ocean. They never found his body.

Someday he's