You Have A Sacred Body

3. Church

4. Eucharist

5. Glorification

1. God created bodies—and it was good. The creation story in Genesis tells that when God created the physical universe, God deemed it as good, in fact, very good: “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). The Hebrew word tov, which we translate as “good,” means more than simply good. Tov, according to Bible scholar Scot McKnight, means magnificent, perfect, wonderful. Tov is a perfect sunset, a glorious work of art, a magnificent athletic feat, and an act of sacrificial love. It is everything good and right and true and beautiful.

At the center of the creation story is the creation of humankind. Genesis says:

So God created humankind in his image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

This verse occurs right before the “very good” of Genesis 1:31. Many Christians begin their theological anthropology at Genesis 3—the story of the fall. But this is a mistake. We must begin our understanding of the human person—including the human body—with Genesis 1. While the fall is an important part of the story, it is not where we begin. If we start with Genesis 3, we easily slip into the mistaken view that the body is evil. But before the fall, the body is, in fact, good. Very good. It is the very artwork of God. The fall does not eradicate it. The body is forever tov.

2. The incarnation: God took on a body. As a response to the fall, God became human. We refer to this as the doctrine of the incarnation. The Latin word, carne, means “flesh” or “meat.” When we have chili con carne, we are having “chili with meat.” The incarnation means “God with meat.” God took on flesh; Jesus took on not only a soul and a spirit, but also a body. This must not be passed over too quickly: God took on a body. This was unheard of in the religions and philosophies of antiquity. The strongest affirmation of the importance of the body, of its sacred nature, is that God himself took one on. And Jesus was not a mere ghost; he did not “seem” to be human—he was fully human.

Think for a moment about the fact that Jesus in the flesh experienced aging, from infancy to young adulthood.

As such, Jesus experienced every bodily sensation we feel, except he did not sin. He hungered, thirsted, suffered, felt fear and sorrow, and he even aged. If scholars are correct in thinking he died around the age of thirty, he must have experienced bodily decline. I like to think that Jesus noticed a wrinkle or a gray hair. Jesus suffered physically, and he also died physically. We are told that he had a body when he was resurrected—again, he was not a ghost. And that same body ascended. And that same body exists today. Jesus became a human in a body and remains so even today. This is an incredible affirmation of the body.

3. The church: the body of Christ. After Jesus rose from the dead and before he ascended into heaven, he told his followers to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to empower them. They would form not just a community, not just a group; they would become members of his “body.” The church is the body of Christ. When we join the church we become members of Jesus’ body. And not merely members of Jesus’ body, but members of one another: “So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another” (Romans 12:5). This is not just a pretty sentiment; it is an actual reality.

The early church understood this. Being the body of Christ was ground for their unity despite their outer diversity. In Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free; there is no caste system or financial stratum—we are all one in Christ. In Christ, people are no longer a source of opposition, or superiority, or inferiority, or exclusion. When I enter the church sanctuary each Sunday, I pause to remind myself that I am experiencing and participating in the body of Jesus of which I am a member, as are all the people I see.

4. Eucharist: this is my body. And when the church gathered, Jesus instructed them, they were to have a meal in remembrance of him. On the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, “‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood’” (Luke 22:19-20). Paul tells the Corinthian Christ-followers, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).

Every time a Christian takes Communion, also known as the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist (three names for the same sacrament), they are taking in the body and blood of Jesus. This is based on Jesus’ words: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” (John 6:56). It is in Communion that the body of Christ becomes a part of us. And not only that, Communion transforms us into the body of Jesus. Saint Nicholas Cabasilas writes, “While natural food is changed into him who feeds on it . . . here it is entirely opposite. The Bread of Life himself changes those who feed on him and transforms and assimilates them into himself.”

John Calvin famously noted that he believed this, but the change Communion works within us is a miracle too lofty to understand: “Now if anyone should ask me how this takes place, I shall not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret too lofty for either my mind to comprehend or my words to declare. And, to speak more plainly, I rather experience than understand it.”

Next time you participate in Communion, think on the truth that you are one in whom Christ dwells and delights.

I like to think of it this way: when I eat a peanut butter sandwich, it loses its original state and is absorbed into me. The sandwich becomes a part of Jim. But when I take Communion, it is reversed: I become a part of Jesus. As Calvin said, it is too lofty for me to comprehend. But this I know and feel: when I partake of the Lord’s Supper, I have a more tangible sense that “I am one in whom Christ dwells and delights.”

5. Glorification: the resurrection of the body. Finally, one of the greatest affirmations of the sacredness of the body is the Christian teaching that we will be resurrected with bodies. One of the affirmations we say in the Apostles’ Creed is “We believe in the resurrection of the body.” This does not only mean Jesus’ body, but our own as well. What do we mean by this? In short, it means that our actual bodies will somehow be reassembled and resurrected into all-new bodies. I find that many Christians assume our current bodies will be discarded and we will be given entirely new bodies of a completely different nature. In fact, I find many Christians whose beliefs about heaven are more Greek than Hebrew, more informed by cartoons and movies than by the Bible.

The New Testament is unequivocal in its teaching that we are and will always be embodied beings. We will never be ghost-like souls. The Christian teaching is that when we die, our souls become detached from our current bodies. Our current bodies will begin the natural process of decay and disintegration. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” as they say. However, although the body is detached from the soul, it is not separated from it. The body along with the soul awaits the final resurrection.

Christianity teaches us that our life after death will also be embodied. Our current bodies are perishable—we are all going to die—but we will be resurrected and will be given new bodies just as Jesus’ resurrection was, and is and will forever be, in a body.

For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:53-54)

This is what is known as glorification, which is the subject of chapter eleven. Our current bodies will be delivered from all past sicknesses and will recover complete wholeness.

This does not mean we shall put on a different body. We shall each put on again our own body. But this new body will be reconstructed, reconstituted, and will have attained another mode of existence—one that will be free from the imperfections, weaknesses, corruptibility, and mortality that characterizes its present nature.

The new body we will receive, our resurrection body, will not live under the limitations and constraints of our present bodies. Our bodies and our souls will be perfectly united and will work in unison. They will not work against us, but will be our allies in godliness. These bodies will not be subject to illness or suffering or death. Our bodies will achieve their ultimate destiny: to be transformed and transfigured.

But one thing we must be sure of: we will have bodies. As Christians, we must purge our minds of the dualistic notion of a ghost-like existence. Jesus had a real body that was touched (as Thomas requested), that was hungry (he ate with his disciples on the beach), and that physically ascended into the heavens, defying gravity.

The original design and plan for the human body is to interact with the transcendent dimension and, more specifically, to connect us to God. We cannot engage in a relationship with God apart from our bodies. Writing in the fourth century, Macarius of Egypt wrote,

For as God created the sky and the earth as a dwelling for man, so he also created man’s body and soul as a fit dwelling for himself to dwell in and take pleasure in the body, having for a beautiful bride the beloved soul, made according to his image.

Notice that Macarius does not say God longs to dwell in our souls only. God “created man’s body and soul” as a fitting place for God to dwell. And what’s more, he says God “takes pleasure” in our bodies, bodies that are made according to God’s own image.

All Christian spiritual formation practices—from prayer to worship to solitude—involve the body. Some are directed at the body more than others, such as fasting and vigils, where the appetites of the body for food and sleep are forgone for a time as a means of training the body, and thus, the soul. But even in prayer we see how the body is involved. Making the sign of the cross, kneeling, closing one’s eyes, bowing one’s head, raising one’s arms, and even laying prostrate on the ground, are all postures of prayer in which the body’s position reflects the inner condition of the soul. In traditions where incense is used, the smell alerts the mind, through the body, that our prayers are rising to God. You are indirectly aware of the spiritual dimension through the sensory realm. Through the senses you discover the sacredness of every person, every flower, every stone. Through your eyes and feet you discover that you stand on holy ground.

When our soul participates in divine peace, brought about by grace, it communicates this to our body. God’s divine beauty, reflected in the soul, is transmitted to the body, which in turn becomes radiant. During a particularly moving Maundy Thursday service, I remember serving Communion and seeing a countenance I had never before seen on the faces of the people. Their bodies—particularly their faces—were glowing with the light of Christ. For many years the people who attended this service would speak of this night, this service, as a sacred space, a thin place where heaven seemed to touch the earth in a palpable way.

When have you experienced divine peace in your body? Have you ever seen someone’s countenance change because of divine peace brought about by grace?

Joel Clarkson, author of Sensing God, tells the story about feeling spiritually dry when he was in seminary and how he went home to Colorado to ask his mother for advice. While they were sitting outside among the pine trees, sipping coffee, his mother’s advice came in this form. She pointed to the beautiful elements of creation and said, “Don’t worry about feeling close to God. He’s reaching out to you at this very moment in these elements. It’s his gift to you. To the whole world.” Clarkson concludes, “Before anything else is true, existence comes to us as a gift of God’s grace.”

Not only is our existence a gift of grace, so is the existence of pine trees and so is the existence of our bodily ability to apprehend them. Our bodies are bridges to transcendence. Those glorious moments when God through beauty reaches out to us and touches our souls, he does so through our bodies. If we did not have bodies, God could not reach us. God sings his love to you in birdsong. God smiles at you in maple trees. God charms you with the color green. He gave you eyes to see sunsets, ears to hear rainfall, a nose to smell a rose. God’s massive love appears in the small fragments. God is loving you in these moments, even if you do not know it. And if you did not have a body, you never could.

I have noticed that, as Christians, we are not very good at loving and respecting and caring for our bodies. And we are seldom happy with our bodies. We want them to look more attractive, or be stronger or leaner. We also often see them as obstacles to our holiness. For many of us, women and men, our bodies are sources of shame and temptation. Many women, for example, feel guilt and shame when their bodies do not “bounce back” after pregnancy. And of course, aging is a cause of shame for both men and women, as we look in the mirror and see sagging and drooping, wrinkles and aging spots that remind us we are no longer young.

But an essential part of what makes you good and beautiful is your amazing body. It is constantly working to serve you; it is, in fact, you. Your body is the only one you will ever have. A way we glorify God is to treat our body as a sacred vessel of honor, to love and care for it as we would a great treasure. Not because we should, but because it is.