After Death

            Sometimes people get very concerned about what happens to their body after death.  Some of that concern I can understand; I mean, does one’s spirit leave the flesh right away, or do they stay tied together until judgment?  I think that the real reason people get concerned about that is, if the two are joined until some indefinite time in the future (indefinite to us, of course, God knows when that will be), then what happens when bodies are cremated?  If it is not yet time for judgment, but the body has been destroyed, is the spirit then condemned to walk the earth until the appointed time? 

            The Bible tells us that when Christ returns, the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we that are alive and remain shall rise to meet them in the clouds.  That would suggest that spirit and flesh are tied together; that the spirit sleeps in the grave waiting to be freed from the body.  This is supported by the fact that all through the Old Testament, and even in the Gospels, people were buried in physical graves.  Abraham bought a field to bury Sarah in, Jacob placed Rachel’s body in a grave, and asked to be buried in the Promised Land, Elisha was buried, Lazarus had a grave, and so did Jesus.

            At the same time, Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians about giving his body to be burned.  In that context, it’s doubtful that he was actually giving instructions for the treatment of his remains after his death, but he does talk about it in a positive light.  There is a definite implication that he feels that it is a good thing to do, whether that would be his choice for his own body or not.  Also, we know that there were occasionally people who died in fires through no fault of their own.  At least a few of those bodies must have been left as nothing more than a small pile of ashes; would God punish those people because of their cause of death?

            I have to admit, I don’t really know what happens in between death and judgment.  I know that the Bible talks about sleeping also 1 Corinthians 15:6, and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15), and normally when we think of sleeping, we think of the body being asleep.  It seems to me that, in this case, what we’re really talking about is that the spirit is not conscious, it is completely unaware of what is happening.  The soul, once the body is dead, really doesn’t know whether the flesh is buried, cremated, or, for that matter, fish-food.  Is there an attachment?  I’m guessing not, but I think that the soul, being unconscious, simply stays with the body, if the body is intact, or stays wherever the body was at the time of death.  Of course, part of the confusion comes from trying to tie an immortal soul to a physical place.  The soul is not a physical thing, it does not take up any physical space, and trying to establish it’s physical location is a lot like trying to nail water to the wall.  Body and soul are one as long as the body continues to draw breath, but once it becomes a corpse, there is really no reason why the spirit should remain chained to it. 

            This one thing I do know:  I don’t care what happens to my body once I am dead.  If my friends and family chose to bury me, cremate me, toss me in the ocean; I don’t think I really care.  I’m convinced that I won’t be aware of what they do to “me,” anyway, so why should I care?  Someone wise once said that they didn’t want flowers at their funeral, and indicated that if you felt that they deserved flowers, you should have the flowers delivered while the recipient was still alive to appreciate them.  I’m not really big on flowers, but I appreciate the sentiment.  If there’s something that you want to do for me, you should do it while I’m alive.  Once I’m dead, there is no changing anything.