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Dalton
Roberts |
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I celebrate Easter as a time to meditate on the eternality of life but I must admit I am not into physical resurrections. Al Harvey calls his body his “ride.” That’s all it is. While we are here for our three score and ten, it is our ride. I do not disparage the body. As one writer said, “We are fearfully and wonderfully made.” It is simply incredible how the body performs so many functions so efficiently for most of us. Having said that and paid my tribute to the wonders of the human body, I repeat that I am not excited about physical resurrections. I do not desire to be physically resurrected. I want a better ride. I know I will be buried in indignant mail but I do not think the body Jesus left the tomb with was the same body his disciples saw three days later. It had the form of that body because seeing the wounds convinced Thomas. But physical bodies cannot go through walls and He appeared in the midst of his disciples without entering the door. He had transmuted and transformed the physical into the spiritual. Paul explains it. Speaking of the body he says, “So is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption … It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body “(I Cor. 15:42-44). He further says, “At the last trump, the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” Changed from what? From a physical body to a spiritual body. That spiritual things have a visible form appears throughout all the scriptures of humankind. Angels are certainly spiritual beings and people see them over and over. People report seeing Jesus and Mary. We even see our own deceased loved ones in our dreams. After my parents died, I prayed to know they were alive and happy and was given the most realistic dream of my life. They were both in the prime of their lives. Dad was dressed in his preaching suit and Mom in her favorite pink dress. You may not believe in the reality of such God-given dreams but I do. Spiritual reality is just as experiencable as any reality. Some of my spiritual experiences have been more real to me than visible, touchable things. My point here is that spiritual things do have forms and can be as visible as physical things. It may be that after death we actually retain a resemblance to our physical selves since it is written that we shall be “known as we are known”? A more likely possibility is that we will retain and express so much of the spiritual essence we had during our earthly lives that people will recognize us by this fundamental spiritual essence. Easter is a time to celebrate the survival of life even when it appears to be extinguished. It comes in the spring when nature springs to life on dead limbs. Flowers burst out of the ground just as miraculously as Jesus came out of His tomb. Evil forces and evil men killed Jesus. Easter is a time to witness that evil does not prevail. The actual life force we call God is arrayed against all evil. Life ultimately prevails and God is Life. God is the life within all its physical and spiritual expressions. It is good to remember this today when so many despair over world conditions. Let us use this time of Easter reflection to realize that the very Life of God was breathed into us and to feel the joy of that Life. Let us enjoy it expressing physically while we realize the physical is powered by the spiritual. And let us thank Jesus for coming down here and showing us how it manifests and expresses in us and as us.
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