Resurrection Season ~ Day 36 ~
We Belong To GOD

For the Year of Our LORD, 4.27.2008

We are attending as visitors a most interesting Sunday School class presented by the local Episcopal church. This church is very Episcopal and cherishes its traditions intensely. The class is a review and explanation of the Burial Service as found in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.

Some interesting facts have emerged regarding the technicalities of being buried. For instance, there are no state laws here in Tennessee regarding caskets. One could choose to be buried in the ground simply in one’s clothes or wrapped in a white sheet. One can be buried on one’s property, also, establishing a family cemetery. If the estate is sold, however, one must inform the buyer of the area that contains the burial ground. There are absolutely no state rules about where you may scatter ashes of the deceased, either.

Rules and regulations for caskets come from the cemetery owners. Embalming is NOT required by state law. Transporting the body across state lines, however, may involve some regulations.

In the course of this class, we are asked to plan our own funeral… which is very interesting. However, even more interesting are the questions some of the parishioners are asking regarding death. That usually takes the discussion to different levels than what was originally planned.

One point which the minister emphasizes in each class is that we Christians should wear the same clothes at our funeral services as we do at Resurrection Time and Baptism : white. In that particular church, an enormous WHITE pall or shroud covers the casket.

We focus on the “death event,” as he calls it, like we would upon baptism … as an entrance into Life. In baptism, we die to our flesh and enter into Life through a watery grave. Later, at our appointed time, as our Adamic flesh dies, we enter into Life through the gate of death. This is similar to The LORD’S death and Resurrection.

This Sunday, he pointed out that when we were baptized, the proclamation is declared: NOW YOU ARE GOD’S! NOW YOU BELONG TO HIM+ !

And when we die, we proclaim the same thing. Scripture says:

For none of us liveth to himself,
and no man dieth to himself.

For whether we live,
we live unto the LORD;

and whether we die,
we die unto the LORD:

whether we live therefore, or die,
WE ARE THE LORD’S.

For to this end CHRIST both died,
and rose, and revived,
that HE might be LORD
both of the dead and living.
Romans 14:7-9


From the 1979 Book of Common Prayer [Anglican, Episcopalian],

In peace, let us pray to the LORD:

Grant that all who have been baptized into CHRIST’S death and Resurrection may die to sin and rise to newness of life, and that through the grave and gate of death we may pass with them to our joyful resurrection. Amen




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The Resurrection of JESUS CHRIST… the most life-changing event in human history!+ + +