Spiritualistic and materialistic notions of the world are scandalous. They both suffer from an underdeveloped sense of the Resurrection as an accomplished fact. The image of God in us isn’t just a “spiritual” reality, but also one for the physics books.
As I learned from my Italian Grandpa and Grandma, good meals begin with bread and wine.
I remember an especially memorable meal Grandpa and Grandma hosted for one of my occasional visits during my college days. Gathered that night were an assortment of aunts and uncles, cousins and guests. As the evening progressed, the conversation came around to how my studies were going. I laughed that my college career had recently averted shipwreck. “To graduate,” I said, “I have to take both Genetics and Old Testament History. But the college had scheduled both classes at the same time. Thankfully, after pleading for my academic life, the college rescheduled the Genetics class, paving my way to graduation glory.”
One of the guests asked, “What kind of major requires taking classes like that?” “Well,” I explained, “I’m double majoring in biology and Bible.” This guest then put down her fork, stared at me in utter bewilderment and asked, “But how do you deal with the internal conflict?”
Grandma sent the bowl of spaghetti around the table again as I responded, “Well, not only are the Scriptures divinely authored, but Jesus is also the ‘author of life.’ So, I’m on a quest to read everything God has written, not only in Scripture, but also in that amazing story inscribed into the DNA molecules of all living things.”
It’s an unusual thing when a table of Italians fall silent. But I testify truly that such a miracle happened that night if just for the briefest of moments. Everyone at this point put down their forks and fixed their eyes upon me to see what would happen next.
Being fuller of myself than I was of Grandma’s spaghetti, I opened my mouth yet again and waxed on. “You see, my major in biblical studies deals with the ‘Word of God’ and my biology major deals with ‘flesh.’ There’s a verse in the Bible that says, ‘The Word became flesh,’ So, doing these two majors enables me to explore this mystery from both sides at the same time. Doesn’t the idea of Word becoming flesh suggest there's an inherent unity of the physical and the spiritual instead of an internal conflict?"
As the silence deepened even more, Grandpa broke it with a question of his own: “More wine anyone?”
As I’ve continued to ponder the physics of the spirituality of Word made flesh over the years, the mystery has deepened. I’m especially blown away these days by the fact there are three distinct things called “The Body of Christ." There is 1) Christ’s physical body in which Word became flesh in the Incarnation and then was raised in the Resurrection, 2) the Church and 3) the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.
Western Christian thinking emphasizes the distinctions between similar things while Eastern Christian thinking emphasizes the similarities between distinct things. It's true that Christ’s physical body, the Church and the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper are all distinct. Nevertheless, they are, in fact, each more the same than different. Together, these three are Totus Christus, the “Total Christ,” head, body, bread and blood as one.
The spirituality of the Kingdom of God is a resurrected embodied spirituality. The divine-human dialog around the Lord’s Table, just like Grandpa and Grandma modeled, starts with bread and wine.
The physics of resurrection flesh is not something to reason toward, but from. What does resurrected flesh look like and do? Prayerfully imagine yourself sitting with Christ at His Table, eating bread and drinking wine with your fellow “kings and priests” with whom you “reign on the earth.” Now that’s a supper!
More significant than the next session of Congress or the next act of Parliament is the gathering of Christ and His Church for the resurrection meal called the Lord’s Supper. This meal is where “secret counsel” writers script the course of space and time. It’s all written here, everything from Scripture to DNA molecules.
It may seem counterintuitive at first, but if your spiritual life has stagnated, then pinch your flesh to find the way forward again. Nothing cures dullness of spirit better than a good reminder that it is via flesh that the Word came to dwell among His ruined creation. He then died and was resurrected into an immortal state beyond death’s reach forevermore.
Spiritualistic and materialistic notions of the world are scandalous. They both suffer from an underdeveloped sense of the Resurrection as an accomplished fact. The image of God in us isn’t just a “spiritual” reality, but also one for the physics books. And there’s more to physics than just “physics.” Failure to make the Resurrection as much about physics as it is about invisible “spiritual” things opens the gate to the likes of Marxism, Freudianism, and Darwinism.
The undoing of Marxism begins the moment we recognize that man is not merely a material being who lives on bread alone. Totus Christus testifies that man lives according to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Chew on that! Fasting from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as Jesus did during His forty day fast demonstrates that there is something more fundamental to the nature of our humanity than the need for food.
Who needs Freudian psychology when the resurrection state, rather than sex, holds the key to the true nature of human existence. Freudianism presupposes that sex is a more fundamental defining factor of humanity than religion, when in fact it is the Resurrection that shapes religion. Resurrected flesh speaks to the true nature of Mankind created as an immortal being who does not require the institution of marriage in the resurrection state to navigate eternity.
And who needs Darwinism when the physics of the Resurrection transforms us from a mortal state to an immortal, superhuman state? Darwinism is a school of thought that modern minds fell prey to because we know in the deepest parts of our souls that transformative glory, not the lowly mortal state of the Fall, is our destiny. Darwinism is a problem for which the Resurrection flesh of Totus Christus is the solution.
More wine anyone?
Boyd+
Fourth Sunday of Pascha (Easter), 2015
Boyd writes a new Secret Counsel blog every couple weeks. Click here to see the whole collection.