To have a body

A thought I had this Christmas season ...

It is a glorious time of year to celebrate and reflect upon the greatness of our Lord to have come and become Jesus Christ for us - the infinite God unbound and unlimited in every aspect of character, metamorphed into the form of one of his own creations. A human being with muscles that cramp, a bladder that fills, a bowel system that moves, eyes that see, ears that listen, a voice that speaks in the physical realm of our world.

But what gets me lately is this: Jesus Christ still has a body! And many of you might say, yeah, so? SO! I have never before considered the ramifications of this aspect of our Lord's sacrifice. I have so often viewed Christ's life here as a gloriously humble life of a little over 30 years, death, a remarkable victory over death and sin and his life returned to him by God our Father with the body he was killed in, then taken from us to sit next to God in heaven. And then we focus on the Spirit coming to help us here, still bound and fettered by our fleshly vehicles until we too might ... might what? Become unfettered? With what did our Lord return to God in if not his body he was raised? Does not Jesus Christ still have his body on? And will he not now have this body wrapped around him for eternity?? Though not directly stated, it seems well implied that when Christ gave of his life, it was not only to gain the ability to die and return from death, but to forever live as we live, forever encased in flesh (a body that now lives forever without disease or death) and so forever upholding our case and need for life and compassion before our awesome God. "Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because jesus lives forever, he has a permanent preisthood. Therefore he is able to save those completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to interecede for them." Hebrews 7:23 - 25 "So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. ... And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven." 1 Corinthians 15:42 - 44, 49. "Dear friends, now we are children of god, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." 1 John 3:2

These are some thoughts and it may be that I am in great error. And I will definitely plead a near inexhaustable amount of ignorance on this subject. But it seems to me that, though I do not consider Jesus to be any less limitlessly powerful or limited because of his eternal existance with a body, he made this part of the sacrifice for our salvation: to live forever as we are and will be and were intended to be.