Psalm 99/Luke 9:28-36

This Sunday, February 20th, is the seventh and final Sunday of the short Ordinary season between Christmas and Lent. February 27th is Transfiguration Sunday, and March 6th is the First Sunday of Lent.

This is our last Sunday reading from the First Letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, and our series on “The Church as the Body of Christ”. The reading is I Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50.

Consider this footnote in The Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Version: “For Paul, the resurrection life would be social-political, requiring embodied people.” I have often said that the Christian faith (and life) is all about relationship. How would this be compromised if we did not have bodily existence in the next life? How would relationships be different if we were purely spirit, or if we were absorbed into an abstract “force”?

Consider that the disciples did not recognize the risen Christ until he revealed himself (Luke 24:16, 31, 37; John 20:11-16). Paul says our resurrection bodies will be different from our physical bodies. How might this be better? How will we still be “me”?