Friday, March 11, 2016

this isn't even my final form

Today in A Year with C.S. Lewis, Lewis talks about how our human reaction to our own physical bodies poses a great argument for the Christian position.

He tells us that making jokes about our bodies, and our discomfort around dead people, demonstrate that we are more than mere animals. And he is right in so far as that goes.

The temptation arises from this thinking, though, to then come to the conclusion that we are not "at home" in our bodies, and are ready to "throw them off" and live as the spirits that God made us. This would be an error. As Christians, we believe in a bodily resurrection. Which means that we believe when we go to heaven, we won't be spirits floating around in the clouds. We will have flesh and blood bodies... the bodies we have now, actually, only perfected.

Some people tend to think that we muddle around now in this physical world, but that one day we will escape the physical and live as spirits. But God created this physical world. He called it good. He put us in these bodies, and called it VERY good. He made all of this, and He did so with beauty and grace and creativity. He LIKES this physical world.

So while we do make jokes about our body functions, and even though it creeps us out to be around dead people... that's not because we will one day leave this physicality and ascend to some higher realm where physical bodies aren't welcome. Instead, we will have perfected bodies in a new heaven, and new earth. We will finally see what God intended when He made all of this.

And we might still make a joke or two.

Thank You, God, for the beauty of our physical world.

1 comment:

Julie said...

It is so important that we take the time to see Gods creation ans witness the awesomeness of all of it.