Russell Moore at Mere Comments does a pretty good job of trying to parse our culture's flippant attitude toward funerals. Link. Excerpts:
According to USA Today, a Lutheran pastor in Minnesota requested that his remains be cremated, placed in some fireworks, and shot into the air on the Fourth of July. His family and friends are glad to oblige. After all, he was quite a fireworks enthusiast. . .
This is part of a much larger cultural trend. The body is seen as merely a "vessel," which can be discarded as garbage or used as fodder for a hobby. Death is seen as one more milestone of life over which autonomous individuals can exercise personal freedom and choice. For two millennia, Christians have guarded the act of burial as a communal event, one in which the community of faith proclaims the hope of the resurrection, of the final shout of the resurrected Messiah in which "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live" (John 5:25 ESV).
When even pastors see burial as a final act of self-expression, the gospel will be that much harder to communicate. After all, where is the message of entrusting oneself, body and soul, to Christ once we treat our bodies as objects of entertainment, even after death? Where is the gravity of a resurrection gospel and the lordship of Christ over life and death when even our bodies are ours to burn, scatter, or explode for the enjoyment of onlookers?
