The Holy Priest-Martyr Dionysius the Areopagite
1 Corinthians 15:39-45; Luke 4:31-36
Read 1 Corinthians 15:39-45
One of the most radical beliefs of the Christian faith is that after we die and suffer corruption in the grave our body will be resurrected on the last day when Christ’s second coming at the end of time will bring completion to all things. This is what we mean when we confess the resurrection of the dead in the Creed. This belief is also revealed in the liturgy, such as when we sing in the liturgies of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday: “Assuring us before Your Passion of the general resurrection, You raised Lazarus from the dead, O Christ God.” So even though we all die and our bodies will suffer decay we will be raised in glory and in power with a spiritual body like Christ. This is what St. Paul says to the Corinthians. How do we know this? Because Christ points the way. His Resurrection brings about our resurrection. He was not some disembodied spirit that was raised from the dead. No. He was raised from the dead with a glorified body: He ate; He spoke; He was touched. He restores our fallen nature, body and soul.
We are saved in the body and therefore our bodies are important; they have dignity. God created us as three-part beings: body, mind, and soul. We do not reject the body as Christians, but we also don’t create an idol out of it. Some religions and philosophies believe that the soul is trapped in the body; or, that our mind needs to be liberated from our body. This is a false teaching because it diminishes the body. Yet, such teaching has found its way into our culture especially in how we understand suffering and death. Suffering in the body, or in the mind for that matter, is not meaningless. It is very hard, yes, but not meaningless. We must take care not to violate our bodies even when we are near death or in the midst of grave suffering. In light of this euthanasia is a grave violation of the body and it robs ourselves and others of the fruits of suffering: perseverance, fortitude, compassion, patience, forbearance, and above all hope. As Christians, we know that suffering leads to resurrection since Christ has revealed this to us through His passion, death, and resurrection. We must follow and join ourselves to Christ’s suffering so that we might make some sense of our own suffering, but also so that we might partake of His resurrected glory.