Christ has risen.
Christ will come again.
Reflecting on the resurrection over the weekend, I realise that the connection between eros and Easter is an important one. We listened to a series of talks by N.T. Wright on Sunday afternoon, which brought this home to me. The bodily resurrection, rightly understood, is the sign of God's lasting commitment to what he has made. He will not simply destroy this creation: he is recreating it, and one day he will bring that recreation to completeness. God's commitment to creation is why this body and its desires and its experiences matter. It's why gender and sex matter. It's why eros is God's good gift, not simply the meaningless impulse of flesh that has nothing to do with the important matters of spirit. It's why sexual abuse is so deeply and agonisingly destructive to people and an abomination to God. It's why we cannot simply say (much as I would like to!) that with all the poverty and injustice in this world, who cares what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms? The resurrection means that God cares. This is not to say that the state should regulate sexual practice as it does taxes or traffic. It is to say that we come to God as whole people and as whole communities: our eating, our drinking, our sexual desires, our shopping, the thoughts and inspirations of our hearts, our treatment of the poor, the art we create and the books we read and write. God is committed to it all, and this is the context in which he builds his kingdom. And perhaps this is the insight to which the Song points when it recognises how profoundly and how powerfully love can move a person:
"Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned." (Song 8: 6-7)
4 comments:
Excellent post! So great to see an emphasis on the whole person and a purposed avoidance of dichotomizing the spiritual vs. physical. To our psycho-physical wholeness!
He is Risen!
Cynthia
Thanks, Cynthia. I find N.T. Wright SO helpful in providing a theological framework for thinking through these issues.
Hi Jo. Visiting here via Simone's blog, and have clearly missed the 'use-by' date of this topic. Likewise, I'm finding Tom Wright refreshing. Do you have any thoughts, though, on why there won't be 'marriage at the resurrection'? I, for one, find that pretty disappointing.
Likewise! But I think it's probably a fulfilment thing - all that marriage offers (and ultimately, in a fallen world, fails to deliver) is more-than-delivered in the resurrection community
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