Untidy Death

By Matushka Donna Farley

The recent discovery in Georgia of a crematorium fraud has brought the reality of death and decay to TV screens in a way that most people have succeeded in eliminating from their consciousness entirely. The funeral industry has sanitized death and hidden its dreadful ravages upon the human body. Increasingly at non-Orthodox "funerals",  cremation has become trendy. There is no body present at the service to receive the final kiss, as it is in the Orthodox practice. The deceased is instead whisked away from home or hospital as quickly as possible, and some of the mourners will never even have the chance to see the reality of the person in death, not even in the embalmed and cosmetically arranged form that is the usual alternative to cremation these days.

Behind the scenes, the crematorium staff is entrusted with disposing of the dead by loading them into a high temperature oven. What the family gets back is a tidy little urn of ashes which they often scatter in some spot the deceased had been fond of in life. No decay, no unpleasantness, nothing to make anyone want to hold their nostrils closed. No reminder of the profound change we must all undergo when we depart this life.

From this illusion of sanitized death, the victims of the Georgia crematorium fraud received a most rude awakening. The remains of their loved ones were not returned to them as they had thought, in antiseptic and decorative packages, but dumped unceremoniously along with others in various spots on the crematorium property. It may take years and considerable technological power for those remains to be sorted out before they can be properly disposed of, granting the mourners some kind of relief from their distress.

The world of first century Judaism was far from ever being under the illusion that death is something that can be dealt with neatly. Unlike many of the pagan cultures surrounding them from earliest times, ancient Israel did not practice cremation of the dead; and the Church too kept what archaeologists call "inhumation" instead of burning as their standard burial practice, even in the face of stubborn resistance from the pagan peoples they evangelized in the post-Roman period. Cremation, for Orthodox, has remained an exceptional practice, permitted only if required by the state, or in extreme situations, such as an epidemic.

First-century burial practices had some challenges to meet: if you were not going to burn a dead body, it was necessary to take steps, in the hot climate, to minimize any contagion and stench. They borrowed a leaf from the book of the Egyptians and wrapped the corpse in linen, anointing it with aromatic oils and spices; but without taking the Egyptian-style extensive steps toward mummification, aimed at preserving the body for an imagined afterlife. The Jews instead left the final fate of the body to God, believing, as Martha says after Lazarus' death (John 11:24), in a general resurrection of the dead at the end of the world.

We modern Orthodox need to remind ourselves of this context when we come to the celebration of the quintessential funerary service, the procession of Our Lord's shroud on the night between Holy Friday and Holy Saturday. Martha and Mary, as we have seen only a week earlier in the story of Christ raising Lazarus from the tomb, were well acquainted with the horror of death. Martha hesitated to obey the Lord when He asked to have her brother's tomb opened four days after his death. With characteristic bluntness she objected,"Lord, by now he stinks!"

But in the end Christ raised Lazarus from the dead. What then must Martha have thought when she saw the Master Himself go down to the enemy she had already seen Him defeat once? What did His mother and disciples think?

The services of the Shroud offer poetic expressions of what they all must have felt that dark day; the style is far removed from our restrained modern approach to death and mourning, and indeed quite a shock to western sensibilities. These words are sung of the Virgin in the vespers of Holy Friday as she beholds her Son and Lord disfigured by the tortures and violent death of the crucifixion: "She mourned within herself and was sorely pierced in her heart. She groaned in agony from the depth of her soul. Exhausted from tearing her hair and cheeks and beating her breast, she cried out lamenting.... "Where is the beauty of Thy form, O my Son?""

No neatly packaged ashes for these mourners; they watched their Beloved die, His complexion drained to paleness from blood loss, His features bruised and battered by the soldiers' abuse. In the tender words of the Aposticha for this day, we hear how Joseph of Arimathea stepped forward to offer burial for this convicted criminal whom he adored as Master: "Joseph of Arimathea took Thee down from the tree, the Life of All, cold in death. Bathing Thee with sweet and costly myrrh, he gently covered Thee with finest linen and with sorrow and tender love in his heart, he embraced Thy most pure body...."

At the end of this service, the "Shroud" (also known as the epitaphion or plaschonitsa) is carried to the center of the church. This icon depicting our Lord's removal from the cross is then laid on a bier, where it is adorned with flowers and venerated by the faithful.

Martha said it quite plainly: death stinks. Unless we get hold of this reality, we cannot begin to grasp the profundity of mourning felt by Our Lord's followers on that terrible day, nor the immensity of His triumph on the third day. They could not fully understand beforehand that the dreadful inevitability that awaits all living things-being turned into food for worms-would find its universal power stymied by Him.

It is fitting that our response to the remembrance of the awesome events of Holy Friday is a simple one. We do not try to explain, soften, or tidy up the devastation of death; instead, in the Matins service of Holy Saturday, we take up the Shroud and bear it around the church in a solemn funeral procession. No consolation is adequate as we mourn the Death of the Life of All. Instead we fall back on the minor-key funeral ode with its desperate plea, "Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, Have mercy on us."

For now, it's as if we haven't the heart to hope in the face of this most untidy Death. But the end of the Matins service gives the smallest hint of triumph to come, as we sing the hymn about Joseph begging the body of Our Lord from Pilate. In the mournful, gentle tone we repeat the refrain, "We worship Thy Passion, O Christ!" and conclude with the grace note, "and Thy Holy Resurrection."