The Church Cemetery: Hear and See the Stones Cry Out

 If you drive by a modern church built after the 1990s, you will most likely see a playground for the kids, a volleyball net for the highschoolers, and maybe a barbeque for the adults to chat and fellowship around. These are reminders of how alive we are. What you are less likely to see at a modern church are looming headstones with dates and names arranged in rows in the grass. Modern churches have lost one of the major defining features of the first churches in America—the cemetery. The removal of cemeteries from a prominent position on the church grounds reveals the modern congregation’s discomfort with death and our own finitude. 

Though burial honors our loved ones and prefigures the resurrection for Christians, modern man’s associations with cemeteries are largely unpleasant. The modern church has absorbed some of our culture’s “anti-death” mindset, and in turn,  the church suffers because it refuses to think about these things at all. We shudder at the word cemetery because it stirs up thoughts of sadness, pain, and loss. When these thoughts creep in on us, we choose to ignore death; thinking about death might lead to thoughts about preparing for that time, the suffering of ourselves and our loved ones, and the question of what happens after death. We might also question if we’ve lived well enough, or if we have made every moment count. Doubts and uncertainty are uncomfortable and undesirable, and we don’t like that in our busy, preoccupied lives.

Although we might want to shy away from thoughts of death and our finite existence, one function of a cemetery is to confront us with these thoughts. An unbelieving visitor may come to repent his spiritual depravity, or a spiritual believer may realize that his spiritual life has slowly been growing as cold as a body in the ground. A penitent heart is one that is disturbed and burdened by one’s own sin, and a reflection on death and life can be one impetus for repentance.

Imagine a congregant in the 1800s. The minister is preaching that the wages of sin are death, and the congregant, either a believer or nonbeliever, looks out a small window and spots the graveyard on the hill. Wild grass is stretching over a fresh patch of dirt, and a bouquet of wildflowers that a grieving family member placed on a headstone is withered and crumbling. If every life ends in death, and our bodies will have their final rest on equal ground with everyone, shouldn’t we have faith in where we are going? Discomfort and conviction at the sight of the tombstones emphasize the message of the sermon; and the heart trembles in regret and realization of what it has done.

When we consider the cemetery, our minds are drawn to remember the lives of other Christians and their hope in death. These heroes of the faith have gone before us, and we can read the hopeful inscriptions on the headstones as we stroll down the rows. The inscriptions fill us with hope as we remember the lives that were lived and the people who were blessed through them. The faithful Christian witnesses in life, and his tombstone witnesses in his death. As we are living witnesses, so are tombstones and cemeteries witnesses of the Christian’s hope in death. Their curved arches and sharp angles point to heaven, and they are an illustrative and visual lesson that can speak a wordless sermon of faith and hope to the common man.

In modern churches, the possibility of this scenario is diminished because the cemetery and tombstones are separated from the church property. A modern minister can preach to his congregation that sin is death, but the visual is lacking. Where is death? What does death look like? Death is simply an abstract concept without its results before our eyes. The minister can communicate the concept of death in so many words, but the tactile evidence pierces the heart from another angle that he can’t touch with words. The heart is more prompted to spiritual contemplation when the mind realizes that his tombstone will be among the grasses one day.

The modern man also loses an important reminder of the brevity of life when a cemetery no longer confronts him. He is more susceptible to believing that he is immortal and is guaranteed to live the average lifespan. He forgets memento mori – “remember you must die.” His life, as the Bible says, is a vapor that vanishes in the wind (James 4:14), but this man will forget because he is removed from death. Week by week passes by, and he may never think about the inscription on the headstone of a man who was like him. Mortality is immortalized in stone. Although the inscription can’t be scrubbed away, the modern man can ignore it with distance. Those dates between birth and death are reduced to insignificant scrawls that represent decades gone by. Our faith and hope diminish without spiritual reminders of death.  As the modern church ignores and distances itself from the dead, it deprives its congregation of the reminder of their finitude. 

If you find yourself on a walk in a cemetery, think beyond the common stigmas of sadness, pain, and loss. You may need to drive out of town to find a cemetery to visit, but the distance and effort is valuable to your spiritual life. Our Savior died and rose in victory, and when we die, we will be like Him. Take some time to ponder the victorious salvation that defies death and strengthens your spirit. Realize the brevity of life and live as if it’s your last day; remember the great heroes that have gone before you; and praise your God – Who is more powerful than the grave.