Well, I have been MIA for the past few weeks due to moving, traveling, etc., but I stumbled across this article on MSNBC.com a week or so ago, and thought it worth mentioning. It turns out that Wal-Mart has begun to sell coffins online, that’s right, coffins. Now it is truly your one-stop shopping destination. The best part is that you can find the caskets under the “health and beauty” section:)
A lot could be said about the new additions to the Wal-Mart inventory, but I found myself
feeling very grateful for this development because it reminds us of our mortality. It is not unlike many of the old Episcopal churches in the South that have graveyards surrounding them. I was just down in South Carolina this past week visiting some friends of Mockingbird, and every church I visited sat amidst the gravestones of its parishoners. You don’t see this very much any more with many of today’s churches worshipping in converted shopping centers and athletic arenas, and I think we are worse off for it. But, those old graveyards remind us that we are not living for this world. They remind us that we are mortal, and ultimately they remind us that we are sinful. Death in this world is a direct result of sin.
It seems a strange juxtaposition going to a church to hear some hope and running into the unavoidable evidence of our impending death, but that’s actually what our faith is all about. We walk through the graveyard (death) and enter the church to hear the Gospel of forgiveness through the cross of Jesus Christ (resurrection).
Thanks to those graveyards, and now Wal-Mart, we know exactly what we are being saved from. They prevent any illusions that we are living for “our best life now” or that Christianity should be focused on saving this world and this life. It’s not at all. Christianity is about being saved for a new life and a new earth. Though we deserve eternal death because of the cross of Christ we receive the promise of eternal life. As a result, the denial of death can stop. Now we stare it in the face knowing that it is not the final word. We become aliens in this world. Without our hope firmly founded in Jesus’ death and resurrection going to church in the South and surfing the Wal-Mart website would be terribly depressing, but with HIM we can hear the words of life and maybe even be free enough to get a great deal on a coffin.
This is a pic of St. Helena’s in Beaufort, SC. Our good friend Andrew Pearson serves there.
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8 responses to “Death and Wal-Mart”
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Sean– Love it, love it, love it!!! When I was a boy we had to walk from the church sanctuary through the old grave stones to get to the "new" building that housed the Sunday school classes. That tends to give the Christian message a certain "Hebrews 11" quality, even to a 6 year old.
Wonderful, Sean…so true.
Thanks guys:)
I discovered this blog a few months ago in a strangely serendipitous way that felt almost providential. (It's a long story… my book club was reading 'To Kill A Mockingbird,' Malcolm Gladwell was dissing Atticus in 'The New Yorker,' and I was following a trail of bread crumbs…) Anyway, I have since grown to love this spot, and I come here almost daily. Imagine my surprise when I popped in this morning to find a reference to St. Helena's Episcopal Church in Beaufort, SC, where I live. Though I'm a Presbyterian, St. Helena's is right across the street, and I take an extraordinary Bible class there once a week from Jeff Miller. I consider it my "other church," and am delighted to find that yet another road leads back to Mockingbird.
We do our Easter Egg Hunt for the littlest kids in our Memorial Garden at St. Luke's Fort Collins. I actually had a teenager remark positively to me about the morbid beauty of it – toddlers looking for new life (eggs) above the ground of our dead members.
The first bit of your last paragraph lost me a bit, (not the dig on Joel Olsteen, but the false contrast between this earth/life and the new earth/life) but I love the thrust of what you are saying – denying or sanitizing death is actually counterproductive.
Also your last line is fantastic:
"free to get a great deal on a coffin" – awesome. Thanks Sean.
Hey Mike!
Great to see you on here. My point about this earth/life and the new earth/life is that we always think that this life around us is all that there is, and if that's the case then we better get busy saving the planet and trying to stave off death, living our best life now. But Christianity has given us a new perspective. This life is going to end, this earth will be thrown into the fire. And those who are saved by Christ will be raised up as new creations and will live in the new heavens and new earth.
I don't think there's anything false about that contrast. We live in a dying world, but our hope is in a living one, and Christ's resurrection is the first-fruits of that promise. SO then, our goal here and now is to proclaim Him and nothing else.
That's not say that I am anti-recycling or conservation or whatever. I'm all for it! It's just that too often we forget that we believe in death and resurrection as opposed to restoration (i.e. "we've veered off the path, and just need a little help to get back on track.")
It's important to be grounded in our lives right now, and at the same time this life right now is not where my hope is. To paraphrase Luther, "You live where you hope."
Anyhow, that's my thinking:)
sean, great comments! really wonderfully put. recently had the same convo with someone…
Thanks Sean for the retort.
I'm 95% with you, but I've read too much NT Wright (which I imagine is anathema to some MBird followers, but I loved "Surprised by Hope") to agree whole-heartedly on the dying world notion or that interpretation of Jesus and Revelation. The birth pains are here for sure, but the New Creation will be sourced in this creation, just as Jesus' Resurrection is sourced in his death and is of the flesh. (Though, I always get mixed up when reading Paul on the difference between fleshy and fleshly). I may be totally off on this, but Death and Resurrection is about restoration to some degree (God doesn't throw his creation which he called good and very good into the trash/fire), but also beyond it (in Christ a new creation).
But that's a longer conversation, and we end up talking about other stuff than what you brought up.
Yet my point remains – you wrote a great post, and thanks for keeping us away from sanitizing death. I literally just finished a graveside funeral where my hands got quite dirty pouring dirt on the cremains, so yeah. That urn is not where our hope is. If we live where we hope as Luther says, then we live in the Resurrection of Jesus who conquered death.
Rock on!