Last summer
a friend of mine told me that she had written a book that had just been
published under the title Losing Sight,
Gaining Vision. Sheridan Gates has a
form of macular degeneration the onset of which happened when she was quite
young. Her adult life has been a
progressive adjustment to the gradual loss of sight.
I
immediately got and read her book. In
recounting her steady loss of vision, she writes about how she learned to
listen to her body. Little by little she
learned to shift from seeing her loss of vision as a liability to seeing it as
a gift. Sheridan began to see herself
not as a victim of illness, but rather as a healer. And healing for her and through her for
others has taken the form of learning how to embrace her body, learning that
though it was losing the capacity to see, the body was learning a new way to
have vision. The body has its own
wisdom.[1]
For the
last three years I have been on a pilgrimage to explore ever more deeply what
the resurrection of the body actually means.
Sheridan’s book, and more recently Sheridan herself, have helped me in a
process of what she and I call “spiritual coaching” to grasp that resurrection
of the body is a way of life. It is a
way of embracing the body, of listening to it, of taking seriously that it may
be not an impediment to spiritual life but indeed the key to it.
I believe
that affirming the body is the central point Luke wants us to get in the gospel
for today. The risen Jesus has appeared
on the road to Emmaus to two disciples who are discussing the events that ended
his life—and the strange tale that some women of their group had told about
going to the tomb and learning that his body was missing. The wayfaring stranger proceeds to explain
all the things concerning himself that the scriptures had foretold. Still the two disciples do not recognize
him. They invite him in to dine with
them when they have reached Emmaus.
While he is at table with them, he—the guest—takes bread and blesses and
breaks it. Then their eyes are opened,
and they recognize him just before he vanishes.
They rush back to Jerusalem and tell the Eleven and their companions
what they have experienced and hear from them that it is true: the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon
Peter. Suddenly Jesus comes and stands
among them, saying, “Peace be with you.”
They are terrified, thinking they are seeing a ghost. He invites them to look at his hands and
feet, saying that a ghost does not have flesh and bones as he does. While they are still wondering and
disbelieving for sheer joy, he asks them for something to eat. They give him a piece of broiled fish, which
he takes and eats right before them.
Whatever
else may be said of this story, it quite clearly establishes four things. One is that the resurrection body of Jesus is
not to be confused with his spirit in
a non-physical appearance: he is not a ghost.
Second, the resurrection body is not a resuscitated corpse, because he
is able to appear and vanish at will, regardless of space, time, and
circumstances. Third, there is continuity
between Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified and the risen Jesus, inasmuch as
the resurrection body bears the scars of his passion and death. Fourth, a transformation has taken place,
because, though the body belongs to Jesus, it has changed to the point that he
is not readily recognizable.
Now we will
never know until we get to the great seminar in the skies exactly what happened
to Jesus between his death on Friday and sunup on Sunday. But one thing is for certain. Something happened to the physical body of
Jesus. And thus any resurrection we want
to talk about has to do with the physical
body, our physical bodies. And we
know well enough what is going to happen to them, don’t we? They are going to die; and one way or the
other they are going to return to the stuff out of which they came: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to
dust. But the church has been letting
itself off the hook of talking about the physical body for too long by
transmuting resurrection into immortality.
The issue of what happens after death might be of great importance, but
the more important thing is what the resurrection means for this life, here and
now. Even the most devoted believer in
an afterlife, of whatever kind, will tell you that what happens there is
directly tied to what we do here. From
that I conclude that it is wise to make a short list of things not to worry
about and put afterlife first on that list.
Concentrate on living life joyfully, lovingly, gratefully, kindly, and
the afterlife, whatever shape it takes, will take care of itself. You have my word on that.
So what
does the resurrection have to do with this
body, yours and mine? Well, first,
remember your baptism. What do we
remember when we forget everything else about baptism? It is “down under and back up again.” It is a ritual death and resurrection. (We are in the land of metaphor and symbol
here.) When we are, as it were, pulled
up out of the water we are united with the Risen Lord in the resurrection. Yes, it has a future, that resurrection life,
beyond our mortal death. But it
certainly does not wait for death in order to begin. So whatever we do with our life in Christ we
do in the very body that is speaking and listening to these words right
now.
Let’s be
honest. For centuries Christians have
distrusted the body, sidelined it, repressed it, despised it, all on the theory
that the body is a great big problem for anybody wanting to live a spiritual
life. So we have been quite good at
developing rationales for asceticism, denying our physical selves for the sake
of becoming spiritually disciplined. We
have a whole gallery of people whom we honor and pretend we want to
emulate—virgin mothers and other virgins, desert fathers and mothers, saints of
one kind or another who practically lived as if the physical body was of no
importance whatsoever. None of that, by
the way, do we see reflected in Jesus, who by his own admission came, “eating
and drinking” with all manner of folk, to the point that people accused him of
being a glutton and a winebibber. Yes,
he fasted and prayed, but we have no record that he spurned the body that he
lived in. That body prayed, fed, healed,
taught, walked, loved, ate, drank, sweated, slept, dreamed, and all the other
things (you know what they are) that bodies do, and finally died. And all of it, all of it, was life as God, in
God, with God, and for God. So what gets
in the way of our living like that?
We have not
only some Christian history to reckon with, but a good deal of secular history
as well. And generally that has led us
in two directions, sometimes almost indistinguishable. One is to believe in the exaggerated
importance of the body. The other is to
repress it and all that is associated with it, especially its sexual dimensions. And here is where resurrection can actually
help us. Resurrection is the radical
affirmation of the physical, the assertion that the Creator knew exactly what
the Creator was doing by making a universe where matter and spirit (energy) are
not opposed, but indeed two different manifestations of the same reality. We do not have to repress the body, even as
we are disciplining it. You can diet,
exercise, do yoga, martial arts, and engage in a host of other beneficial
disciplines, all without disparaging your body.
More than that, you can actually keep the second of the two great
commandments—you can love yourself as you love your neighbor. And you do not have to be ashamed of or
embarrassed about doing so; for in loving your body you are loving the greatest
gift that your Creator has given you. At
its best, it can be the portal of delight you can only describe as divine.
And you can
affirm your body as mortal. Wherever you
are in life right now, your body is on its way to the grave. That has been true all your life. Get used to it. On that list of things not to worry about,
add “my death.” Doing away with anxiety
and fear of death is not so easily done as said, but it can be done. It takes practice. Take a tip from Sheridan. Don’t imagine that your body’s loss means
your own diminishment. You may very well
gain vision as you lose eyesight, or gain comprehension as you lose the faculty of
hearing.
Ironically, the more we accept and honor our
physical, mortal bodies, the more we are free to let go of the useless and
neurotic effort to stave off their death. And the more we let go, the
more ready are we to move into the joy of a life unencumbered by fear, powered
only by love. Living that way is living the resurrection. Life powered by love is the
Kingdom of God, where there is no more sorrow nor sighing nor repression,
because the sting of death is gone, and there is no need to repress anything
anymore.
© Frank
Gasque Dunn, 2015
[1]
Sheridan Gates, Losing Sight, Gaining
Vision: Thriving Throughout Life's Losses (Purpose At Work, Kindle
Edition), see especially p. 91.
