This is not a description of the soul or spirit, for those are not asleep but with the Lord in heaven. It is the body that sleeps, and sleep is a temporary condition. The bodies that sleep yes, I suppose even those that are decomposed are awaiting their wake-up call on the resurrection morning. Without doubt, it is the doctrine of the resurrection of the body that has motivated the Christian practice of burial and the Israelite practice before it. Everywhere Christianity has spread, cremation has given way to proper and respectful burial.
Christians have a robust view of the body, both in life and in death.
One of the great comforts as we face disease and sickness and death in this life is the knowledge that they will not have the last word. No, it is these bodies that are so integrally a part of ourselves that will be resurrected in glory, imperishable and immortal. And though we acknowledge the physics of the grave we are not in alliance with them, nor with death at any level. Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. Everything about that description tells us to honor, to preserve, yes, even to dedicate real estate to the bodies of those our beloved who having died are with Christ in the spirit, and awaiting the resurrection of their bodies in the morning of the new creation.