The Christian faith is an embodied faith. We share this bread and wine, and Jesus says, this is my body, this is my blood, do this in remembrance of me. So we share this bread and this wine week after week, which represents God’s embodied love.
While there is a great deal about our bodies that we are still learning about and that is still very mysterious, there are also some simple, easy lessons for us. We are created in the image of God, we are created male and female, we are created hungry and thirsty, we are born and we live and we die. These are some of the indisputable facts that our bodies proclaim. Of course this doesn’t stop people from trying to dispute them. We evolved. Who’s to say what male and female really is? And people are trying to grasp sovereignty over fertility, health, and live forever by the power of science and technology.
But here, we have the death of Jesus for our life. We have God become man to stand in our place as the truest man there ever was. And He gives His life as bread and wine, and whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood will live forever.
And my point is simply that our bodies – even though they are ravaged by sin – are parts of God’s good creation. God is talking to us in them every day, and we are either believing and obeying God or disbelieving and disobeying God in and with these bodies. But these bodies are also temples of the Holy Spirit. You cannot separate your walk with God from your body. And part of this is really very humbling: but God, it’s a mess in there. And part of this is also really very comforting: He knew it was a mess when He moved in. Which is all just to say: we are all just people with bodies and God knows what He’s doing and it’s all grace.
What is man that God is mindful of Him? The son of man, that God visits Him. He has made us a little lower than the angels and crowned us with glory and honor.
So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.
Photo by Benny Jackson on Unsplash
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