Physicality

A long time ago I found myself thinking thoughts like, "wow I am a person." I never really shared with anyone these thoughts until I was married to Drew because it just sounded so weird to say out loud. Of course I am a person! Why is that such a big deal? The real question behind this thought was "what does it mean to be a person and have a physical body?" What I came to realize after starting Seminary is that so much of how I understood Christianity was focused simply on identity and knowledge, and that God didn't really care so much about the physical. This is not a Christian way of thinking, but more of a Platonic way of thinking. It is amazing how much Plato's thought has affected our Christian worldview. I don't think that this dichotomy was something that was taught to me specifically, I think it was simply implied by a lack of discussion about our physicality. A saying that I often hear in my counseling classes is that, "though we are good at taking the pieces apart to study them in depth, we often forget to put the whole person back together again."

I am about to start my counseling internship within the next month and half, and I will be sitting with a lot of different clients who have faced and are continuing to experience brokenness in their lives. The brokenness is not just isolated to the emotional or psychological, but it also affects the physical. We are whole people and often how we take care of our physical bodies tells a lot about where we are emotionally. Our bodies and our whole physical being is absolutely something that the Lord cares about. He made our bodies and promises that when the story of Scripture is complete and he comes back to make all things new, our bodies will be made new again as well. I believe that we need to have a better theology of physicality and listen more to what our bodies need. God has given them to us to enjoy and glorify him: we can run, play tennis, ski, sing, dance, touch, have sex, climb a tree, heal, sleep, eat, and drink. These are all wonderful things that we could not do without our bodies.

Jesus himself has a physical body. When Adam and Eve fell in the garden they were suddenly aware of their sin and even it's affects on their physicality, they covered themselves with fig leaves and hid. The entrance of sin through Adam and Eve caused the whole person to be broken. We all experience shame because of our bodies, but the redemption of Christ provides healing for the whole person. The incarnation and resurrection is proof that the whole person is important to God and will be redeemed when his kingdom is brought in it's fullness. Until then we have the opportunity to continue pushing back the affects of sin on our physical body and look forward to the day when our bodies will be made new!