Kiss Corpses

I had a discussion on Twitter about Christian burials. Expecting the resurrection of the dead, I don’t much care what happens to my body after I fall asleep–yes, I expect a bodily resurrection, but those saints whose bodies were eaten by wild beasts will also get glorious bodies.

You can say it’s gnosticism to not have a fetish of the burial, and I’m sure the neo-gnosticism which is so much in vogue these days accounts for a large part of the new popularity of cremation. But if you can say that cremation smacks of gnosticism, I can say that a fetish of burials and tombs smacks of natural religion. What matters of the dead is their heavenly life, not their dead bodies, and the God of Abraham is the God of the living. (Relics are another matter.)

Again, I’m not advocating for anything–my whole point is that we care too much about it. But I do think that the Christian attitude towards death has become too secularized. There is good evidence that the earliest Christians’ death ceremonies were celebrations–a fact upon which, I think, we do far from meditating enough.

One practice in relation to the body that I earnestly recommend, however, is kissing corpses. (Corpses of people you know, not random corpses, right?)

All people, but particularly Christians, should be well-acquainted with death. One of the luxuries afforded to us by mass affluence and unprecedented peace has been the taboo-fication of death. We don’t dare talk about it or confront it. Death is a reality, it’s a fact of life–it’s the most sure fact there is. But our society is quite afraid to talk about it.

If you have loved ones who die, it is particularly helpful to have the children kiss the corpse. When my grandfather died, the body lay in state in his home office for a couple days, and we each bid our goodbyes–with a kiss. The kiss is essential, because nothing drives home better, at a deep, bone-level, the reality of the death of the loved one. And grasping this reality is very helpful to the grieving process. (Actually, one of my aunts wouldn’t let her small children see the corpse. So of course the kids had nightmares about the mysterious corpse in the other room. The other kids didn’t.)

And the kiss also robs death of its magic. The evolution of the species has bred in us an instinctive holy terror of corpses–but death has been vanquished by Christ, and Christians have no fear of death. To kiss a corpse is to get over, and proclaim that one has gotten over, this natural instinct, that one has defeated it, by the grace of the Paraclete sent by the Risen Christ. It simultaneously shows love of the loved one and the casual indifference to death that marks out the believing Christian. A corpse is, at best, a kind of icon, and icons are kissed.

Do what you must with the body. But kiss it first.

Hideko Bondesen – http://www.nordenskirker.dk/ [CC-BY-SA-2.5, CC-BY-SA-2.5 or CC-BY-SA-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons