The Third Day of Advent
“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel [God with us].” Isaiah 7:14 KJV
“Bread of the Angels, is made bread
for mankind;
Gifted bread of Heaven of all
imaginings the end;
Oh, thing miraculous! This body of
God
Will nourish the poor, the servile, and
the humble.”
–Thomas Aquinas
“Flesh had blinded thee, flesh heals thee; for Christ came and overthrew the vices of the flesh.” –Augustine
Our society constantly claims a monopoly on the secrets of the body and its desires. As Christians, we far too often fall prey to this lie, either taking the body for granted or writing it off as nothing but an occasion for sin. However, to discard the body is to discard what Jesus accomplished in His Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, namely the redemption not only of the spirit, but of the body as well. The Bible reveals the extent to which God desires to restore his physical creation, the culmination of which is the human body, for just as sin was introduced into the human race through the body of Adam, so the sanctification of the human race has entered the world through the body of Christ. Christ, by assuming into His own Person a human body, came not to liberate us from our bodies, but to liberate our bodies from sin, and thus in His Person all matter is glorified. May our lives give flesh to the Incarnational spirit of Christmas, as Old-Testament shadow becomes New-Testament substance, Old-Testament figure becomes New-Testament fulfillment, and earthly exile becomes everlasting communion through the bodily and spiritual suffering of our Lord.
Garner Richardson
This week’s Re:Verse passage is Matthew 1:18 – 2:12
