A resurrected body

 1 Corinthians 15:38–43, 47–49, 58 
“But God gives it a body as He has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.”

“The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”

“For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” 

I have spent a lot of my life hating my body; it wasn’t just the way it looked, it was its propensity to failure, its inability to hold onto health or to gain it, the way it brought me emotional and physical pain, the many steps it lagged behind, how hard I had to work to gain an inch just to lose a mile the next day. I spent years beating it up; verbally degrading it for its inability to catch up or to keep up, physically trying to whip it into shape with every tool at my disposal. Empty hands and helplessness my only tokens of thanks.

I fought the hatred, I really did. I worked hard to associate with it, I repented, I learned to speak kind words to it, I forced myself to look at it, I sought the truth of its forming on the pages of scripture and came out of agreement with the lies I spoke over it. But my steps in victory couldn’t seem to remove the underlying loathing.

I have learned over time that the Lord is very careful and intentional in the order in which He walks us toward healing, so my cries didn’t stop until finally the Lord gave an answer to my continued desperate pleas for His help. He said, “It is time,” and carefully walked me back through my life and showed me that my health problems directly related to my trauma; with the loss of each brother, my body internalized the separation of death with separations of its own. The burden of the emotional tax weighed on my physical body and caused it to stagger. He led me down the paths of my sorrows and showed me that it was not the failure of my body that was displayed, but its endurance. Bent and broken was the heart, and the body that contained it followed suit.

The hatred fell off as the wall of enmity that created separation between my body, soul and spirit crumbled. A spirit of compassion washed my eyes, and turned my heart toward my body instead of against it. And we began out walk toward healing as one who has been made whole.

And that’s been a unique journey for me, to live without loathing. My body recovers from exercise differently; there is no insistence on results, only hope for wellbeing, the freedom to fail, and the willingness to seek help; the desire has changed to kindness, instead of cure.

I’m writing this because the Lord showed me another layer to build upon in pursuit of this healing.

I’ve often found comfort in the idea of shedding this body some day; to leave behind the broken pieces and metaphorically “wipe my hands of it.” But I was reminded in a sermon recently that Jesus has a body…that in His resurrected form, He has a physical body and so will I. And that is good. A truth I have not considered. It also stood out to me that even though His physical body had been made new, He chose to keep His scars. And that also is good.

It forces me out of my relief of future separation from what has caused me to struggle in this life (specifically, my physical body) and into the consideration of what it means to remain united with it. Do I believe that is good and why?

Because it’s true, the resurrected Jesus had a physical body, and it was His physical resurrected body that is lifted up as evidence of His identity and of the fulfillment of His purpose. The scars declared the truth of His suffering and of His victory, and were offered up for the faith of His followers. His physical body ate fish His disciples had prepared, and his physical hands built fires to prepare fish for them; His physical and pierced-through feet walked down the road beside His people and His physical mouth expounded to them the scriptures. In the 40 days between His resurrection and ascension, we are given a glimpse into what it looks like for a human being to be raised from the dead to eternal life.

So what if in eternity my perfected body still testifies of what it has endured? What if the evidence remains, not for pain but for glory? What if the suffering is not forgotten, but instead carried without lament? What if my twisted fingers remains twisted even as they find themselves able to play instruments and make pottery in the city of God?

I have learned from His word that the goodness of who He has made is not lost with our losses or tarnished by our corrosion; I have also learned that His goodness in our losses and corrosions are what shape us into the followers we are today. And perhaps these emerging layers will find that their paths lead to Hebrew 2:10, “For it was fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in the bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” Perhaps the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony will be presented upon our physical body that bears the evidence of imperfection being resurrected by Perfect love. Perhaps the Lamb spoken of in the book of Revelation who stands as “one who has been slain” will be looking out over His blood-bought people, standing also as ones who have once known death. 

To be resurrected is not be erased and to be recreated without blemish. It is to be restored to life…but resurrected life bears the evidence of the fires of earth, the crucible in which the dross of a broken life gives way once more to His image. His feet of burnished bronze are left bare upon the streets of heaven; His blood soaked robes royal enough to be worn when He sits upon His white horse and returns upon the wind; the scars upon His hand no hindrance to the holding of His scepter, but are the very things that bear witness to His right to lift it. 

He makes all things new. And that is good. But even the new will bear witness to what has been. And that is very good.

There’s got to be healing in these thing, may I lay hold of it as they settle in me.