I just read of a lady passing at age 73 with celebration life services on June 12 in the sanctuary of Boston Avenue Methodist Church. She was inurned in the Columbarium at the church. A vault with niches for urns contains the ashes of cremated bodies.

Many Methodist churches including Asbury Methodist are leaving the Methodist denomination of the rift involving same-sex marriage. Boston Avenue is staying (surely not for fear of getting the ashes mixed up.)

If Mary and Martha had brought Jesus an urn of ashes asking Jesus to raise, resuscitate or resurrect their brother Lazarus from the dead, would He have? The answer is no. Could He have? The answer is yes.

This has nothing to do with the Second Coming when all of our redeemed loved ones will receive glorified, resurrected, immortal, sin-free bodies to live, serving our Lord with praise and worship and enjoying God forever.

However, cremation is not Christian burial. Several years ago, I sent the history of cremation to every mortuary in town. (I no longer visit them for fear that when the mortician hears that I am 94, he might ask, “Is it worth your time to go home?”) I still prefer to be seen rather than viewed and prefer to be “over the hill” instead of under it.

At that time, they advertised that Billy Graham said (cremation) was OK. I said that you can bet the North 40 it won’t happen to him, which proved correct when he passed at age 99 (I think in 2018).

Thank God for resurrection.