Since we are unable to have communion on May 7th due to the Annual Meeting of Northern Spirit Regional Council, we will be having communion this Sunday.
This week we continue our journey through 1 Corinthians 15 with verses 35-49
The Sermon title is What Body?
Early Thoughts: When we talk about resurrection and death and funerary practices, what do we believe about the body? What happens to our body?
In one of the oldest statements of Christian faith in existence, the Apostles' Creed (many United Church folk once learned this creed by memory as part of their confirmation process), we read these words:
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body
and the life everlasting. Amen.
The resurrection of the body. What does that mean? Does our physical body become reanimated? What about decomposition? What if the body is damaged? What if one is cremated? Are we stuck with the same body we have now?
At its heart the belief in resurrection of the body suggests "The belief that after death
one's departed soul will be restored, or resurrected, to a bodily
life in heaven." (source). Certainly this is what Paul is affirming in these verses. I am just not sure it clarifies things all that much.
It appears that the Corinthians are wondering about the body. Some of those questions echo on all these years later.
The part of the Easter story that I have always wrestled with the most is "what happened to Jesus' body?" In Luke and John it appears that the resurrected Jesus is sometimes easily recognizable and sometimes not recognizable at all. What is this body that appears and disappears at random? It is easier for my mind to process the idea of a resurrection that is more of a mystical/visionary/otherworldly event than one that includes a body you can touch and feed. Then to extend this bodily piece to all of us complicates matters a bit more.
At the same time, I think it is very healthy to see body and souls as an integrated whole. So if the soul if resurrected there must be some involvement of the body...
In the end, I think I can follow where Paul leads on this question. At a quick read it seems that he may be trying to muddy the waters with his talk about a physical body and a spiritual body but I don't think so. I return to the fact that in the Easter stories the Risen Christ is sometimes hard to recognize and the fact that Paul's own experience is far more mystical and visionary than the Easter stories in the Gospel. Resurrection is not resuscitation, it has a transforming effect. I also like the image of a seed that Paul uses. I wonder if Paul knows that Jesus is reported to have used a similar image. In John 12:24 Jesus says " Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit." The body does not need to be the same as it was (for some this is a great cause for hope).
So what body do we have after the resurrection? I think it helpful to think there is a bodily form rather than free-floating spirits. Just don't ask me to describe what that body looks like.
Historical side note...
For a long time many Christian groups resisted cremation, favoring the burial of the body (either with or without embalming). This is in part because Christians have historically pointed out that the body is a gift from God, not to be demeaned (think of the "body is a temple" language). As I understand it it is also in part because of questions about the resurrection of the body. Can one be resurrected if the body is destroyed?
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