Do I have a body, or is my body part of who I am?

My grandfather, who had been a commanding officer in the army, was looking at his old and wrinkled hand. I was about fourteen years old, visiting on my way between school and home (a bike ride of some 8 miles). I don’t know whether he was talking to me or to himself, when he said: “why should these old hands rise again?” As he saw his body lose its strength and usefulness, he started to lose his faith in the resurrection of the flesh. Would it not be enough if our mind, or soul, or consciousness, lives on after death with God? That, at least, was the opinion of many Greek philosophers, who saw our rational mind, and only that rational mind, as the divine element within us that could be worthy of eternal life, - if it was a superior mind at least. Roman emperors claimed their minds were so superior that they rose up after death to take their place among the ruling stars.

A few years later, my grandfather walked me out. I knew he was not supposed to drive his car anymore, but suddenly he wanted to get into his car. He got anxious. The dams had broken and the waters were rising; he had to get his wife and family into the car to drive them to safety. I kept my hand on the door handle, - it was no longer 1953 when he commanded his troops during the great floods to help evacuate 72,000 people and help recover the bodies of about two thousand people who had drowned, along with 200,000 cows and countless other animals. He tried to wrestle my hand open, but no longer had the strength. It took like forever before he stopped trying and turned back to the house. “Bastard,” he called me.

A bit later had to go to an Alzheimer’s ward. There his mind shrunk further. At first he wandered around in circles, trying to get out. There were so many ghosts from the past driving him forward. But over time that ended to and the times that he would recognize us during a visit became fewer, and farther between. Often all we could do was sit alongside him and hold his hand, - caressing the now thinning skin. He still liked that.

Who are we? Are we our beautifully growing but ultimately crumbling body? Our complex, unpredictable soul – loving and angry, gracious and envious? Or our spirit, divinely inspired and demonically contaminated? Are we only what is good and beautiful in us, or do we also love the imperfect and disfigured within us? What is worthy of salvation, resurrection and eternal life? Or is everything to end in dust and oblivion? Does that leave our lives without purpose, or is there consolation in the passing on of our ideas, stories, DNA, and molecules to the generations and life forms that follow us? And what is the soul, what would she have been, what can she be, without the body?

God restores Israel

There are three lines of thinking in the Hebrew Bible that gave the lives Israelites a deeper, sacred, meaning. The Thora placed their fleeting lives in the ongoing context of a people in partnership with the eternal One. They were not only their individual selves, but part of a community that exists and endures beyond them. They could experience this eternal covenant and contribute to it by faithfully living in accordance with the laws, rituals and institutions of their people. The Prophets, confronted with the shortcomings and sufferings of the people of Israel, found meaning in God’s faithfulness. True, Israelite society was divided and imperfect and, yes, other more powerful nations could subdue and oppress it, but God would bring them back and restore them. There was always hope. Finally, the remaining writings, the Psalms in particular, opened their souls to experiencing the presence of God in their lives, and their own presence before his eternal throne.

Ezekiel was a prophet among the (northern) Israelites who had been deported by the Assyrians to present-day Syria and northern Iraq, while the Judeans in southern Israel saw Jerusalem and its holy temple destroyed by the Babylonians, who then deported them to Babylonia in southern Iraq. His book is a very personal account of how he was moved by holy spirit to warn, to mourn and to encourage. He received dreams and visions and gave words to them. And he was the first to see the resurrection of the dead (chapter 37). He saw the bones of the conquered armies of Israel strewn around in a valley. Their lives had ended in futility, with no one left to bury their bones. Their families were brought to distant lands where they were buried in exile. But holy spirit within him showed that this did not have to be the end: even a broken nation could be restored. The tribes would return from the north and east and be reunified in Israel. God is faithful. Ezekiel sees the Lord making an end to the oppressive empires (chapters 38 and 39). The temple will be gloriously restored and the tribes will inhabit their ancestral lands in peace and prosperity in the presence of God (chapters 40-48).

God restores us

In Ezekiel’s days, the resurrection of the dead was a metaphor. But especially in the days of the Maccabees, when Jews were martyred in their struggle against their Hellenistic overlords to remain faithful to the Law, the desire for individual restoration was strong, a call for final and eternal justice for both victim and persecutor. This is the time, many believe, that the full book of Daniel was composed. It expresses this idea of resurrection-and-judgment in its final chapter (Daniel 12:2-3):

Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.

In the days of the apostles, therefore, Jews could have different expectations about the resurrection of the dead. It seems that the Essenes believed that the soul is immortal. The Sadducees had no need for that or the resurrection and argued that you cannot find these concepts in the Thora, the most authoritative part of the Hebrew Bible. At most, you could think that the human breath (or spirit) returned to God (Ecclesiastes 3:19) who had given it (Genesis 2:7). The Pharisees (of whom Paul was one), on the other hand, cherished the hope that the dead would rise again, that the exiles would return, that Israel would be restored, and that the righteous would be part of the everlasting life to come. They inspired the masses - struggling to get by -, including all or most of the followers of John the Baptist and Jesus.

Whether taken literally or metaphorically, the concept of the resurrection is closely related to the conviction that this world can and should be a better place and that God works to bring it about, even when change is slow and often opposed: “‘Not by (military) might nor (human) power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord” (Zechariah 4:6). Perhaps you can compare this to the role that religious songs played in the Civil Rights movement in the US. They were first known as ‘slave songs,’ and then as ‘negro spirituals.’ But they don’t spiritualize slavery or racism. Singing these songs, the oppressed preserved their dignity in God’s presence. ‘In my Father’s House.’ And they kept the hope for freedom alive, for Jesus died and rose again. “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” And when the time came, singing these songs strengthened their spirit of non-violent protest and death-defying solidarity. “Tell old Pharao: ‘Set my people free.’” Perhaps we should call them Afro-American psalms and prophecies.

God restores his creation

As the apostles travelled the Greek-speaking lands of the Mediterranean, a bodily resurrection was seen as foolish by their audience (Acts 17:32). Only the intellect was considered worthy of salvation. And how can a body ascend to the heavenly realm to shine among the stars? Can’t we say that the soul or spirit is already resurrected within us (2 Timothy 2:17), like when we are reborn by faith in Jesus? Paul does not buy it. For him the resurrection of Jesus proved his Jewish hope right. Nevertheless, he does acknowledge that ‘flesh and blood’ cannot enter into that heavenly realm: the whole of us needs to be transformed (I Corinthians 15:50-51). Our bodies will become spirit-bodies so we will ‘meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever’ (I Thessalonians 4:15-17). Our brothers and sisters did not die in vain. When the Lord ‘comes down from heaven,’ those who ‘died in Christ’ will rise first. They are ‘sleeping’ in the dust’ it seems; yet, when thinking about his own death, some 25 years later, Paul writes “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far,” (Philippians 1:23).

In the second century, the church kept to this Jewish belief, despite many Christian groups, like Marcionites and Gnostics, arguing for a spiritual understanding. They believed that only the soul or the spirit was worthy of salvation. Some even spurned the body and sexuality. Many of them thought that the divine Christ would not stoop so low as to enter a physical and corruptible body. Many of them rejected the idea that Jesus shared our humanity, sickness and death. They came to doubt the goodness of creation and the creator himself. But Jesus went out as a healer of mind, soul ánd body. The stories of his healings are full of resurrection language as he raised up the paralyzed man before his feet, the lame man in Siloam, the epileptic son of a desperate father, and the daughter of Jairus: ‘Your sins are forgiven, rise up and live!’

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Marc Chagall, 1958, Song of Songs IV. Chagall Museum in Nice, France. Chagall ‘s paintings comment on the biblical love poem. Here the bride is unified with the inspired king and carried upward by strength of their bodily love (the winged horse). They light up the heavens as a comet. To me, this is a beautiful image of the unity of body, soul and spirit in love.

Suggestions for dialogue

A moderator can explain the dialogue steps and invite people to contribute:

• Check in with yourself. Share with each other how you are in this moment. Then take a moment again to seek stillness, humility and openness. 
• First round: Share something from the text or image(s) that stood out to you and that you would like to explore with the group, briefly indicating the thoughts and feelings that it evoked within you. Listen to the others do the same: what resonates with you? Responses in this round should be limited to questions for clarification.
• Second round: Name one or two things that resonated with you from the things that others just shared. 
• Third round: Having heard the group, the moderator names the main topics for exploration. The moderator may also propose a common thread that emerged in several topics. The exploration normally starts with asking the person(s) who brought up the topic to expand on it.
• Leave room for silence and contemplation. 
• Check out by sharing what you take home from this dialogue.

These suggestions are an adaptation of the Estuary protocol. Look for more at https://www.estuaryhub.com