Why Jesus’ Human Body is Good News for Us
What the incarnation means for our own bodies
The house was quiet. I was sitting on the couch, wrapped up in my favorite blanket, with a book on my lap and a scented candle flickering by the window. I took a sip of my tea, and thought: this is a sacred moment.
But was it? Because on the heels of that thought came another one — maybe I just mean cozy. I’m reading a novel after all, and not the Bible.
Is there inherently more value in the spiritual and the unseen versus the material world? Is one more sacred than the other?
As I pondered this question about what counts as sacred, I remembered a study on 1 John. One of the heresies that threatened the early church was the doctrine of “Docetism” — the belief that Christ’s body was not human but only appeared real. Docetism, which later became part of Gnosticism, was a dualistic way of thinking that elevated the spirit and treated matter as evil.
The Incarnation is an everyday reality
We don’t toss around the word “incarnation” much outside of the Christmas season, when we celebrate that God sent his son Jesus to us in human flesh. Seasoned Christians like myself have become so familiar with the story that we overlook the mystery of it all:
