As I ended last week, I just knew there was something special about marriage. In hindsight, I can see one of the reasons was because marriage is the clearest example of the integration of our bodies and souls. Marriage becomes marriage when love becomes a physical reality. I began to see that the connection between the body and soul permeated my understanding of all human existence.
Without getting too much into the theological arguments, much of what I had learned in my spiritual growth until then had pitted bodies and souls against each other in a body=bad and soul=good dichotomy. It seemed that the only thing holding us back from heaven was our bodies because it was the flesh that leads us to sin. But in marriage, it is the bride and groom’s bodies, fully given to each other, that makes the bond a very real image of God and thus, a revelation of the love God has for us.
“Man became the image of God not only through his own humanity, but also through the communion of persons, which man and woman form from the very beginning. ... Man becomes an image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion. He is, in fact, ‘from the beginning’ ... also and essentially the image of an inscrutable divine communion of Persons. The second creation narrative could also be a preparation for the understanding of the Trinitarian concept of the ‘image of God’” (Pope Saint John Paul II, Nov. 14, 1979)
I had discovered within fibers and textile processes that we are actually body-soul composites. Put another way, we are embodied souls. As I used my body to crochet each dome, pick clean and wash the raw wool filling, and stitch it all together, I was bringing a spiritual concept into a physical reality. The very act of creation was a connection between my body and soul. Through it, I was bringing the invisible to the visible. The integration of the spiritual to the physical was so united, so integrated, so completely, wholly one, that I couldn’t doubt the dignity or importance of our human body.
The body cannot be separated from the soul or vice versa (cf. Mark 10:9) and we are most fully alive when we engage both our minds and bodies at once. I honestly believe most of today’s hot button issues are centered around the attempt to separate our bodies from our souls.
What Rob Bell was saying had hints of the very real experience I was having in my relationships and in my tactile artwork. But more than just an external “display” for others to see God, I was realizing that I, myself, was growing closer to God through this integration of my whole person.
Now I could see a dynamic relationship between my body and soul. God was working through my body and my physical existence to bring me closer to Him. Even more, He redeemed my physical existence and even raised it up to a higher level when He became one of us and entered into our physical, tangible reality with a body of His very own.
“And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us.” John 1:14
”She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. She said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” Immediately her flow of blood dried up. She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.” Mark 5:27-29
”So extraordinary were the mighty deeds God accomplished at the hands of Paul that when face cloths or aprons that touched his skin were applied to the sick, their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.” Acts 19:11-12
Christ is baptized, not to be made holy by the water, but to make the water holy, and by his cleansing to purify the waters which he touched.” Saint Maximus of Turin
Not only did the King of the Universe come down to live a messy and dirty life just like us, but, by doing so, he lifted up our bodily existence to a higher level. By becoming flesh (John 1), He injected His supernatural essence into the natural world. The saving power Jesus gave to the woman from Mark 5 is the same power He gave to Paul in Acts 19. The very water that baptized Jesus became different by touching Him. All of this means that His flesh gives our flesh meaning. His flesh gives our flesh power. Sunrises, snow, flowers in bloom, handkerchiefs, aprons, hands, feet, dying on the cross, changing a baby’s diaper - all of it glows with the light of Jesus’s saving power.
And that, my friends, changes everything.
Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo, 1508-1512
Homework: Listen to “Closer” by Maverick City Music featuring Brandon Lane
Extra Credit: Watch Fly Away Home