Yesterday I celebrated my 33rd birthday. It has been playfully dubbed my “Jesus Year,” as the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas once surmised that our resurrected bodies would be 33 years old, the approximate age of Jesus at his death. Of course, this assertion has no biblical warrant. If it were true, I would regret not being in better shape for heaven — but alas, there is always another year to stay closer to my diet and exercise aspirations!
What is true, according to the scriptures, is that life in the age to come will be an embodied, physical reality. We set our deepest hopes on this promise each time we recite the Nicene Creed, which says we believe “in the resurrection of the body.” Nevertheless, this doctrine is often misunderstood and ignored by popular Christianity.
I’m reminded of a wildly popular praise song from the 90s that went: “From the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky, Lord I lift your name on high!” While an admittedly catchy tune, the lyrics conflate the resurrection and the ascension — totally skipping over the forty days during which the risen Christ again walked this earth, encountering his friends in everyday life: behind locked doors, on the road, at breakfast, by the sea.
In the liminal space of these post-resurrection, pre-ascension days, Jesus foreshadows the bodily resurrection that we too will enjoy in the fulness of time. It is a resurrection not of mind or consciousness alone, but of body and flesh. While the mechanics remain a mystery, it seems evident that matter matters to God.
Why does any of this matter for us? In the season of Eastertide, we are reminded that faith is lived out in our bodies. Contemplation must be accompanied by action; the Gospel calls to get our hands dirty. Similarly, we are reminded that faith is profoundly concerned with how we relate to the real, messy, actual bodies of our neighbors: black, white, brown, young, old, weak, strong, queer, cis, fat, slender, incarcerated, dying, and all other varieties. It is impossible to love our neighbors in the abstract. 
Sometimes neighborly love invites us to gaze into the violence and trauma that bodies bear, to sit with the discomfort, and to find God there. Remember that when the risen Jesus encounters Thomas, he shows him his wounds. Disability theologians and activists such as Nancy Eiesland have highlighted this moment as a radical display of a risen, and in fact, disabled God, which is to say a God whose body does not conform to societal ideals of physical strength, beauty, and perfection. Indeed, the risen Christ reveals a God who does not erase or discard our bodily wounds, differences, and nonconformities but embraces and transforms them to be a display of divine glory.
As N.T. Wright has suggested in his book, Surprised by Hope, neither does the prophets’ vision of a new heaven and a new earth suggest the replacement or abandonment of this earth, but rather the transformation of it. In the biblical tradition, our current bodies — both human and planetary — will be our heavenly bodies. If this is true then our efforts towards justice and equity and the care of creation are more than an exercise in moral achievement; they are participation in God’s own dream: the very union of heaven and earth.
When couples unite in marriage I always advise them that a wedding day does not a marriage make. The same could be said of Easter. Beyond the lilies and trumpets, hats and parades, Easter is more than a day. It is a way of being in the world. It is the Way that leads to life. As we walk the Way of Jesus this Easter Season, I invite you to consider how God is calling you to get your hands dirty. How are called to more deeply love and embrace the body God has given you? How might you strive for the care of all bodies and of the planetary body we share?
As we say at St. Bart’s, everybody needs a place. Every body needs a place. May this be our prayer. May we be an answer — this Easter and always, by God’s grace.
The Reverend Zack Nyein
Senior Associate Rector
Artwork: Crucifixion and Resurrection by He Qi