Lent began for me with a lovely ecumenical Taize service at our church. The imposition of ashes took on a new meaning for me this year. As previous posts on my blog indicate, I'm facing death on a more regular basis via Clinical Pastoral Education (internship as a hospital chaplain). A tangible reminder of my mortality, of our bodies is always powerful. Ashes, accidents, illness, losses, and births are all reminders of our mortality.
I've been thinking a lot about the influence Greek thought has had on my own perception of the body...of embodiment. I'm struggling to accept the premise that we are body, mind, and spirit/soul. How can you parse those out? I prefer the Hebrew understanding,of us as nephesh...interconnected, breath, life. soul and body. That's why death is so powerful...death ends all of us...body, mind, and spirit. you can't separate them.
This impacts my soteriology. Our souls are not only saved...no, our bodies, our minds, all of us. For, it is our bodies that are an integral part of who we are. This also impacts eschatology...remember that part in the Creed where we say we believe in the resurrection of the body? Yup, all of us will be raised.
Now, that does raise a lot of questions about death and the "afterlife". Questions that I'm thinking about now during Lent. What does it mean to be saved, what does it mean to be joined to Christ? What does that mean when we die, and when creation is finally restored?
Just as you can't parse out the body, mind, and spirit of Jesus Christ. I think Christology and atonement theory have something to add to this wondering.
So, that's what I'm thinking about this Lent. What does it mean for Christ, who was fully man...fully embodied to live, suffer, die, and rise again? How does the Easter journey impact our own perception of life and death?
I'm curious, what are you all experiencing this Lent? If you're a Christian, what's going in in your spiritual or church life this season?
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2 comments:
I remember learning about some of this at Calvin, Suzie. Cool stuff to think about. I guess as an agnostic I don't think much about it anymore in terms of Christianity but the idea of rebirth still has a hold on me. Not in terms of actual rebirth, but I think we as humans go through several cycles of "rebirth" in our own lifetimes, meaning that we give up/die to our old selves and become something new due to life circumstances or spiritual "awakenings" or whatever you want to call it. Spring (and Easter) is a reminder to take a look at what might need to change, see how we can bring new life into our selves, and continue to grow toward something bigger than ourselves and better than what we can be on our own. Easter spawns from old pagan spring rites, so I think someone from any/no religion can find something worthwhile in the age-old ideas of rebirth.
I've been meaning to comment on this subject for some time, but haven't gotten around to it. Thanks Susan for presenting some excellent reflection/discussion material.
For me, during this Lenten season, I can't seem to escape the idea of the "Kingdom of God" and Christ's role in this reality. I've been meditating on how Jesus ushered in the Kingdom of God yet how His full reign is (obviously) incomplete. In our church we speak a lot of the "inbreaking of the Kingdom", how we see glimpses of God's power through healing and restoring, but how they are only glimmers of complete redemption. This idea has come up in both my reading of Buechner's Sacred Journey where he reflects on God speaking through our everyday lives, and also, in reading N.T. Wright as he speaks about "echoes of a voice" and signposts that point to something greater than we can understand.
At the same time, I struggle to face the injustice, destruction, and death that continues to pervade this world. More so, I wrestle with the perversion, pride, and selfishness in my own being. That I am a part of a creation that is groaning and crying out.
This is the reality of our age. I've heard it referred to as the "already and not yet" of the Kingdom. But what I've been convicted of lately is the that in this overlapping of the ages, God is actively redeeming. Not only is he active, but He is an intimate God. That the realms of heaven and earth are not so barricaded as the Deists might think, but especially through Christ, God desires genuine intimacy and removed whatever barriers may have existed because of our sin.
In an attempt to quell any further preachiness of this post, I'll just say that, more so than any Easter season before, I'm struck with trying to understand just the radical shift that took place in Jesus's birth and death and what that means for the Kingdom of God and our present place within this tension.
If you want a much more theological and coherent discourse of this topic, I'd suggest George Ladd's The Kingdom of God.
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