Re: Essay about errancy

I appreciate the humor, Dick, but I'm with Michael. Paul wrestled with the meaning of it all (as I don't have to tell you), but he provided some (mystical) insights have have helped me to understand the biblical notion of resurrection better. Seeing Christ's resurrection as the "first fruits of them that sleep," he goes on to say that it is sown a physical body but raised a spiritual body. The disciples' experience was that Christ's spiritual body could suddenly appear even when the door is locked, and still bear the marks of his physical torment. Whether our resurrected and glorious bodies (whatever form they take) will bear our limps and bruises we know not; here we walk by faith and not by sight.

My physical body, the scientists tell me, is made of stardust; and perhaps some of its atoms once belonged to a pelican. And for all I know its own dust may end up in the wood that will "stop a bunghole" (and if the brew is a good one, I surely won't mind). Some day I'll likely be using someone else's cornea, and at my death someone else may get some organ of mine (if they're not all worn out at what I hope will be a ripe old age). I hope to know them both in some other dimension of time and space. To paraphrase Polkinghorne, perhaps God will keep me in the Divine Memory (we speak analogically, of course), and reconstitute me in God's own way and time in whatever transformation God intends for the creation, where I and others "may go from strength to strength."

In the end my understanding of the "resurrection of the body" is one I share with Paul and with that Greek Orthodox bishop who, when asked to explain the Trinity, replied: "Ah! Eet ees a grea-a-a-a-t meestery!"

Bob

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Dick Fischer
  To: ASA
  Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 8:59 PM
  Subject: Re: Essay about errancy

  Michael wrote:

    I will respond by saying that I do not believe in a physical resurrection
    but rather a bodily one. In that Jesus left behind an empty tomb as a
    transformed body.

  Well, with nail punctures and a hole in His side which he showed to Thomas. H'mmm ... Does this mean if we get eaten by sharks we'll enter the kingdom of heaven looking like steak tartar? And what if we're organ donors? Or get cremated? Egad!

  Dick Fischer - Genesis Proclaimed Association
  Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
  www.genesisproclaimed.org
Received on Thu Feb 5 09:10:32 2004