On the eve

I have a lot on my mind tonight, on the eve of Reformation Day, which is the eve of All Saints Day.

My anatomy class was offered extra credit if we came to class this Friday dressed up in a costume related to anatomy. With Rebekah's help and encouragement, I made my own "costume," a T-shirt on which I drew my own underlying muscular system. Bekah insisted on taking a picture, so I may post that.

As I stared at the finished T-shirt a lot of things were stirring in my mind. I've been subjected to a lot of evolutionary teaching lately, which would have me believe that my body is the result of a long series of chaotic chemical accidents, and that my flesh and blood is simply a peculiar collection of those chemicals accompanied by a strange phenomenon called perception. That was on my mind.

I was also thinking of a passage from C.S. Lewis' The Pilgrim's Regress, in which, at one point, people are lead to believe that they are nothing more than a sack of guts. A giant has them all trapped, and when he looks at them, it is as if their innards become visible to all. Under his influence, life is made to look as "ugly" as death.
In the story, Reason comes along and saves the main character from a pit with all of those people. She later tells him that, insofar as a man is cut open, he is not a man. The entire book is good, and I particularly like the exchanges between the main character and Reason. They remind me quite a bit of Aquinas, except that they are much shorter and in the context of the story, therefore much more enjoyable to read. It should be read with a grain or two of salt, but overall I think it is quite a good book (like pretty much everything Lewis wrote).

I also started thinking of Psalm 139. Then I started thinking about the perfect creation of Adam and Eve, the incarnation of Christ, and His bodily resurrection and ascension. Then I started thinking about other things I have learned from my pastors, and first and foremast, my own father, who has, so far, taught me more than anyone else about my heavenly Father.

Then I thought about the rest of my family, who I have been thinking of and missing quite a bit lately, looking forward ever more anxiously to Christmas time, when I will get to see them in the flesh. Then I started thinking about the fact, which has often comforted me, that so long as we are gathered around the Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, we are more truly and closely united with each other, and with all the saints, than we ever are according to our own flesh.

And then bittersweet thoughts. I thought of my youngest brother, whom I have never seen with my own eyes or touched with my own hands. I have never had the privilege of seeing or feeling him as I kneel at the Lord's altar, or of sharing God's Word with him. I was not even privileged to join the rest of my family in commemorating his departure from this veil of tears, in what seems to my selfish heart such an untimely fashion.

But although I was not able to speak God's Word to my littlest brother, that Word was spoken to him. His earthly father, in the stead of Christ and by His command, preached the gospel to him, and his earthly mother prayed for him. He was at the Lord's altar, and the Lord's body and blood was given to him through his mother's flesh and blood. There is no greater source of confidence in the salvation of a man than the promises of God's Word, and my brother received those.

It is hard for me not to morn. I know that it is better for him to rest with Abraham than to suffer and struggle against the flesh in this world. I am more sorry for myself than for him, as I continue to live through that struggle. I am not ashamed to morn because of death, though. Although He presses it into His own good service, God hates death, and so do I.

Yet in His innocent death and resurrection, Christ has conquered death forever. He has saved my brother from his body of death, and he does the same for all of His saints. In this confidence I can take comfort, and fear death no more. Rather, I know that on the last day He will raise me and all believers in Him, in our bodies, to everlasting life. For He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

So I decided to write Psalm 139:13-16 on my T-shirt, and dedicate it to Job, on the eve of the eve of All Saints Day.

Pax Domini