Accrington Crem Chapel

Not many months ago, I was called upon to preside at a short service at Accrington Crematorium. The old cemetery chapel is Victorian, but its internals are modern and pleasant, with glass doors, clean toilets and padded, upholstered chairs. It was comfortable, modern and stylish -the three things death most certainly isn't.

Firstly, it is uncomfortable: often painful, sometimes drawn-out and invariably unwanted.

Secondly, it is old fashioned: since our first parents, we have been dying, and we end up joining them in the grave, one by one, in a tedious and predictable succession.

Thirdly, it is not stylish: it is undignified, awkward, and vulgar.

Thank God, we have a Saviour who conquered death and the grave. Though believers’ physical deaths may be little better than anyone else’s, we know we depart to attend a place more comfortable, eternal and beautiful than anything this world has ever known, including and especially an old chapel in a Lancashire crematorium.

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. John 14:1-4