Romans 6:3-4, do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life . . . . Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
Pascal famously said that we are set between beasts and angels, sharing with beasts a physical form and organic processes and sharing with angels the capacity to know, will, love, speak.
That middle position can seem a disappointing place to end up. Would that we could be pure spiritual essences like angels! many Christians have thought. That is the wrong conclusion to draw. Angels do not have material bodies as we do, but it’s precisely because we have material bodies that we are the image of God.
Because we are physical and spiritual beings, we are creatures of signs and symbols. Angels can think, but lacking bodies they cannot gesture, cannot show their love for God in postures and signs. We can. Angels form a host around God, but angels are not made members of that host by a washing with water. We are. Because we are in this middle position, God manifests Himself and His glory more fully through us than through any other creature. Because we are between beasts and angels, we are more fully and thoroughly Godlike than any other created things.
We are celebrating the Advent of the Son of God in human flesh. We sometimes hear that the Son assuming human nature is analogous to a human being becoming a cockroach, but that is not a helpful comparison. We are created as God’s images, to be receptacles for God, to be the final site of the Advent of the Son.
In baptism, God begins to make our bodies receptacles of His love and glory. Through baptism, we are joined to the death of Christ, so that we die to the life of the flesh and anticipate new life in the Spirit. Through baptism, we are cleaned up so that we, in our bodies, can become dwelling places for Christ in the Spirit.
Of course, your children do not become incarnations of God by baptism. But because of the incarnation, because the Son took on flesh, because the Son rose again so that our bodies could rise, in our angelic-beastliness, we become transparent to the glory of the Father, manifested in the Son, poured out in the burning light of the Spirit.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
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