I Believe He Was Buried – (The Creed, Part 11)

[This devotion is part of our series on The Apostles’ Creed, you can find all the videos in there series on our Apostles’ Creed Page. The devotions will be added as they are posted.]

Romans 6:4

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I believe he was buried. Of course, we talk about Jesus’ death and his resurrection. But why is Jesus’ burial important for our faith as Christians? It is certainly important to establish the resurrection. That Jesus was buried in a tomb that he later broke free from. But Jesus’ burial also says a lot to us as Christians for how we treat the worldly remains of our loved ones after their soul has gone into heaven.

In Jesus’ day, after a loved one died, their body was always treated with the utmost reverence and respect. As is the case with Jesus, his body was taken down. He was wrapped very carefully, covered with fine perfumes and incense, and then his body was placed on a slab in a family tomb. These tombs are often caves cut out of the rock. They would have a large bench where a body would be placed, and around that bench you would have these niches carved into the stone. And what would often happen is that the body, once it was placed on that bench, would be left there for about a year. And in that time the body would decompose. As we say, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The body that was given by the creator has now returned to the creator.

After that year had passed, the loved ones of that family member would come and reverently gather up the bones, place them in a stone box called an ossuary, and that box would be placed in one of those niches in the family tomb. And therefore the whole family would in a sense be buried together. When we come to funerals today, oftentimes, there’s a lot of question and doubt. What to do with the remains of our loved ones after they’ve passed away? Because the expense of funerals, it’s very common and understandable that bodies will often be cremated. And then through all the busyness of planning the funeral and dealing with everything else that comes around death, oftentimes the final burial is delayed. Or maybe it doesn’t happen at all. All too often, you’ll hear about someone’s ashes that are in a box in an attic somewhere, or maybe left on a mantelpiece somewhere as a decoration.

It’s really important to understand that grief is real, and death is a horrific experience to have to see someone that we love die. It’s very difficult to let go of them and to put them in the ground, because that feels so final. It’s important for us as Christians to understand that how we treat the body after death is a confession of our faith in Jesus. A confession of the sacredness of the body and what ultimately will happen to that body. It’s so important for us to understand that, that even though our loved one’s soul is in heaven, that the ash, their worldly remains, are sacred. They have been redeemed by Jesus that belongs to Jesus.

Think about that beautiful comfort we have in baptism. Paul says we were therefore buried with Christ through baptism into death. (Romans 6:4) It is a beautiful picture how baptism makes you part of the family of God. How through baptism you spiritually die and rise with Christ through the forgiveness of sins. But it also means that through baptism you have a burial place, each Christian has a burial place in Christ’s family tomb. We’re in a sense, buried with Christ.

When each Christian is laid to rest in the ground. The importance of that is that where the head goes, so does the body. Just as Jesus rose from the dead to leave his place empty and that bench empty in his tomb, the same will happen with every single one of our loved ones. The day will come when Jesus raises them from the dead and they leave that place empty. That’s our faith and our hope when we confess Jesus was buried.