Recently, I attended a wake. I expected it to be like every other wake I have ever attended: sign the guest book, console the survivors, look at pictures the family has on display and share a few stories. This wake went much the same way, just as I expected.
However, this wake offered a surprise. The coffin of the recently deceased contained a built-in safe for placing various keepsakes that will be buried with the deceased. A number of questions rolled through my mind. Why would a coffin need a safe? Of course, people do rob graves, but I don’t think grave robbers are that common, and to place keepsakes in the safe and not valuables seems to nullify the reason for a safe. Who holds the key? It would seem illogical for the deceased to hold the key for the deceased could never use it, but also, if the grave was robbed the deceased would offer the key to the robber, again nullifying the use of a safe.
But, there was yet another surprise lurking within this vessle of eternity. A time capsule. This was not the keepsake safe, nor was it another place to store items that could be examined by a future archaeologist or anthropologist (who could, ironically, be classified as grave robbers but just ones who are well-educated). No, this was a tiny little pill-sized electronic time capsule, a computer chip, containing identifying information about the deceased including the obituary, photos, documents, and more. At the time, one explanation offered for this time capsule was that if the coffin were ever disturbed and displaced (grave robber? earthquake?) the coffin and its occupant could easily be identified for proper return to the gravesite. However, all of that other information certainly wouldn’t be needed to return property to its former address.
So, for what purpose do the safe and electronic time capsule exist? The deceased have often been buried with objects either important to them or what the survivors think will be needed by the deceased in the next realm. The only thing accomplished by placing objects in the coffin is that they will be buried and forever gone just like the deceased themselves. The electronic time capsule is a bit different. It is going on a journey with no destination. Dare I say a road to nowhere? Is it important to know exactly who is buried in the coffin 100 or 500 years from now? The only reason I can think of is idolatry. The process and ceremony of a funeral and burial have been, for centuries, an exercise in personal idolatry. Now it is being taken to a whole new level. Instead of just being a form of worship of the recently deceased, coffins with electronic time capsules serve to tell the future grave diggers or catastrophe workers exactly who you are — as if it really mattered.
This was a Christian funeral. Isn’t the first commandment that you shall not have/woship any other gods? Aren’t you supposed to avoid graven images? The words spoken by the pastor contained the ever constant words at every Christian funeral, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”, but from whence came nothing certainly returned with something more. Who says you can’t take it with you?
Jim Croce may have wanted to save time in a bottle, but he was simply behind the times. We now save time in a small capsule and allow our successors to swallow it at will. Personal idolatry for Christians is not just a good idea — it’s a requirement.
