Bogus Burials

Bogus Burials
By Wendy Wippel

You probably remember the interchange recorded in Matthew in which Jesus tells a gathered crowd to, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.You probably remember the outcome, too. Large clouds gathered around Him and He gave the order to go to the other side of the lake.

He gave the order to go to the other side of the sea and there a scribe approached Him and said, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go!” (That Scribe, once he saw that there was nothing of material to be gained in the bargain, is conspicuously missing from the Biblical account.

Next?

“Lord,” another of His disciples said, “first let me go bury my father.”. Then the Lord Jesus said something that has given a lot of readers pause over the intervening years since Matthew was written. Jesus told him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

That doesn’t sound like the king of Peace, right? That’s not all love and sympathy? And that’s kind of rude.

In the words of the great Paul Harvey, here’s the rest of the story…

Recent archaeological research in Israel has demonstrated that by the time of Christ, burial practices had expanded greatly from those commanded in the Torah, which basically consisted primarily of honoring the deceased, particularly parents, and have the burial completed by sundown.

In the years that Jesus walked among the the nation of Israel, however, rabbis were teaching — incredibly enough — that after the deceased was first mourned; the body should be left to completely decompose, and only then be gathered to his fathers, as is tradition, when the bones of the deceased are joined with the bones of their ancestors for eternity.

Why did the Rabbis enforce this second layer of funeral? They had come to the conclusion that it was the decomposition that purified the deceased and saved him from his sins!

No wonder He had problem with that!

So Jesus’s response makes perfect sense. Let the (spiritually dead) bury their own (spiritually dead.)

But God’s mercy is so abundant, and his love for us is so great, that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience he brought us to life with Christ. It is by God’s grace that you have been saved”. Eph 2:4-5

And all God’s people say, Amen!