The eternal Word was united to a human body. Though this was an act of humility, it was not an act of shame. He spurned not to be called a man. Joyfully He took on flesh, and dwelt among us.
You could have heard His infant cries, coming from real human lungs, on that night of His birth. That same body traversed Israel, healing the sick & blind, feeding the hungry, teaching of the Kingdom, driving out money changers. His body was broken on Golgotha. Then His body was buried in the tomb. But when He rose, it wasn’t as a disembodied apparition. He didn’t leave His body behind, opting for some floating orb of spiritual light instead.
No. He had come to defeat death. And so, like a trophy of His conquest, He rose from the dead with that same body to everlasting glory. He ascended bodily to the Father’s right hand, reigning there forevermore.
His body is now there. But it’s also here spiritually in the bread & wine. He’s here in His gathered saints. It’s no contradiction to say both that His resurrected body is ascended to the throne of glory, and that He’s here in this meal. No more than it would have been when He first was laid in a manger. Christ never laid aside His divinity in taking on humanity. As regarding His divinity, He has always been everywhere at all times.
His glorified human body now sits enthroned in heaven. But because He is the man Who is also the second person of the Godhead, He still fills heaven & earth. Here indeed is His body, broken for You. We can say both these things, because He’s the fullness of Him that fills all in all (Eph. 1:23), and also because He’s the child born in Bethlehem. Truly God, and truly man.
So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…
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