We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. We repeat these words every Sunday at the conclusion of the Nicene Creed, followed by the acclamation, Amen. I have recited them thousands of times, yet the strangeness of what we profess still strikes me. The resurrection of the body provokes scores of questions, perhaps more than any other Christian doctrine. Chief among them: How, exactly, will this work?
An enduring temptation is to interpret the idea of the resurrection metaphorically. Of course the dead will not rise at the end of time. Surely it must be their spirits that will live. The idea that the dead will actually walk again beggars belief. This is what the Gnostics thought. The Spirit is holy, but flesh is sinful. At death we will finally be able to shuffle off this mortal coil.
Yet this is not what we believe. During the Easter season especially, we profess that the dead will walk again, as Jesus did on the road to Emmaus, the wounds in his hands and his side proof that he was no mere apparition. For if the resurrection of the flesh is to be denied, the prime article of faith is shaken, Tertullian once wrote; if it is asserted, the faith is established.
Our flesh may betray us over time, but there are few of us who would want to do without its pleasures in the life to comethe satisfaction of a good meal, the sublime wonders of music, the healing that comes with touch. The genius of the Christian narrative is that it promises life in the Spirit lived in the flesh.
Over the centuries, the doctrine of bodily resurrection has been a great comfort to believers facing the overwhelming fact of death. In a forthcoming book, This article appears in March 24 2008.
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