This is my body (2)*

by Arie C. Leder

Scripture’s high view of the human body tells us it is nothing less than what God has created for joyful and sensual service. From the day Adam sang of Eve as “flesh of my flesh,” they were so gifted and without embarrassment (Gen. 2:23-25; cf. Song of Songs). But then Eve and Adam compromised their bodily service, touching and eating what God had prohibited. In priestly terms, they defiled their bodies, and by so doing defiled the presence of God in which they moved and had their being. Life would forever be changed: the most ordinary bodily activities, birth and work in the field (Gen. 3:16, 17-18), would bear the marks of the broken relationship between God and his human creatures (Gen. 3:10, 23-24), and between men and women (Gen. 3:21, cf. 2:25).

By virtue of their disobedience all Adam and Eve’s descendants are broken and impaired, both in body and soul. Thus, Paul teaches that we are dead (Rom. 5:12; 6:23) in our trespasses and sins. “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness,” he urges his listeners, “offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness” (Rom. 7:12-13). It is only within the body of Christ that our bodies, that we as body-soul beings who are fundamentally broken, can begin to experience and practice a righteous use of the body. All of us, whether cognitively or physically impaired. Leviticus already points us in this direction.

Lessons from Leviticus

In its theological description of life in the presence of God Leviticus employs the human body, its ordinary processes, fluids, and a still difficult to define skin disease. Although ordinary, these processes are so “yucky” that chapters 11-15 receive less than their due attention in the pulpit. After all, it might be asked, how can ancient instructions about eating, post-birth uterine discharges, skin disease, and genital discharges be spiritually enlightening? Strangely enough, they are.

The apostle Paul, a learned OT Scripture reader by training, helps us to understand the theology of Leviticus when he reproaches the sexually immoral Corinthian Christians: “Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?” (1 Cor. 6:19; cf. 3:16-17). The human body is endowed for priestly service (Roman. 12:1-2), like the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem and the tabernacle in the desert. In this Paul reflects nothing less than Leviticus. Our bodies are not our worlds to do with or think about as we please, but God’s. That is, he rules over our bodies as his temple. Our bodies then are a microcosm of the macrocosm, a small version of the world God created and in which he is present as its Creator, Ruler, and Redeemer.

In the world of Leviticus, God is in Israel’s midst and Israel in God’s close presence. But God’s close presence is dangerous because the sinful descendants of Adam and Eve’s need grace to survive in God’s close presence (Lev. 10:1-3; Ex. 20:18-19; cf. Heb 12:28-29). Thus Leviticus addresses us as Adam and Eve’s descendants: about their, and our, deep brokenness in body and soul; their, and our, lack of wholeness; their, and our, being subject to death and decay like the flowers of the field. Leviticus uses our own bodies to instruct us. For our purposes we will look briefly at Leviticus 13-14, two chapters on skin dis-ease (We’ll exclude the part about mildew in the walls.)

The Levitical body and brokenness

Several things we know with a high degree of certainty: the skin disease in question is not Hansen’s disease, leprosy, but something like psoriasis. Second, the uncleanness and the resulting excommunication from the camp is not the result of human intentionality. No one wills to have this skin disease. Unlike life-style diseases such liver problems which result from alcohol abuse or sexually transmitted disease, the skin disorder of Leviticus 13-14 comes upon the person randomly, like most diseases and impairments. Third, the human body is treated like two other important spaces: the camp and the tabernacle. Like these spaces, the human body must be clean, without defilement of any kind. The tabernacle must be clean because it is God’s dwelling place, the camp because the tabernacle resides in its midst, and the bodies of Israelites because they reside in the camp, in the close presence of God.

When any one of these spaces becomes unclean, certain rituals are prescribed for its cleansing. Thus, the Day of Atonement rituals serve to cleanse the tabernacle from the defilement of Israel’s sin (Lev. 16:16). Human life in the presence of God ought to be pure, whole, clean, and stay within its assigned limits or boundaries, but sin has introduced unwholeness, uncleanness, impurity, and the transgression of limits or boundaries. This is now the “natural” state of humanity before God. Leviticus uses the human body, its natural processes and unintentional defilements, to speak about one’s relationship with God.

Because skin disease breaks the skin and may form patches of scales, a person so afflicted carries in her or his body evidence of unwholeness, decay, and death. Because the body is broken and defiled, the person is broken and defiled. The afflicted and unclean must then move from the camp, life continues, but now outside of the normal relationships. Daily, the defiled person experiences a “little exile,” i.e., being removed from the place where her true identity is rooted, the presence of God and her family and friends. And there is no fault attributed. Disorder appears randomly. When it so breaks into someone’s life the afflicted must warn everyone: “Unclean, unclean.” Similar with normal bodily processes such as post-birth uterine and genital discharges. In this case uncleanness occurred repeatedly, or, seemingly, without end (Mark 5:25-34).

Such is the grace of divine pedagogy: Our own bodies, “whole,” “normal,” or “broken,” are conscripted to serve as kingdom-of-God signs that point us to the truth of our “natural” state.

Wholeness and unwholeness

Only through the hearing of the gospel (Rom. 10:14-15) can such pedagogy be effective. Through it alone can we confess that we are fundamentally impaired, no matter what our “normal” or “broken” cognitive and physical abilities may be. But that very confession also allows the Christian to bear the whole range of brokennesses–including emotional, cognitive, physical, and spiritual dis-ease–as signs that participate in God’s reminding us of our natural unwholeness. Outside a profound commitment to the gospel this understanding of life in the human body makes no sense; it is foolishness (1 Cor. 1:18-31). It is folly because the world considers our bodies “our only comfort,” our very own garden to accept or deny, and then cultivate as we will.

The knowledge of our fundamental impairment shapes us when we experience the random physical impairments that come from disease. We will know that our wholeness does not reside in our bodies, whether “normal” or “broken,” but in our being one with the Lord of life during the times of our “normal” or “broken” lives (Mark 5:34). Wholeness derives from belonging to the body of Christ, a body that is perfectly whole from before the foundations of the world, a body whose wounds and suffering comprehends all the wounds, suffering, abuse, cognitive and physical impairment, that may come upon the sinful descendants of Adam and Eve. And when members of that body suffer such impairments in this life they, we, pray for the sick and disabled, the suffering.

But how should we offer such prayer. Take the following samples of prayers for the sick. Note the honesty about our “natural” state. See how the brokenness of body and soul are taken up into a confession of sin, but also of complete trust in the Lord to whom we belong, body and soul, in life and in death. Do we pray this way? Should we pray in this manner? Are these but old-fashioned prayers that do not meet “my needs”? Are our prayers for healing rooted in Christ’s wholeness?

Prayer and wholeness

“I acknowledge, Lord, that your chastisement is just; I have deserved them thousand-fold. My sins have so provoked you that you are just in striking me with the rod of your anger. I have also failed to do my neighbor the good I could have while I was strong. Even more, my carelessness has endangered the souls of my neighbor. Therefore you come in righteousness to banish me from the fellowship of my friends and set me among strangers. But Lord and good God, there is grace and mercy with you; and even though this contagion . . . prevents me from being with my children, I have complete access to you, through Jesus Christ my Lord.” (Excerpt from “A Prayer for one visited by Pestilence,” by Willem Teellinck [1579-1629].)

“We beseech Thee that Thou wilt grant us the grace of the Holy Spirit, that He may teach us to know truly our miseries, and to bear patiently thy chastisements, which as far as our merits are concerned might have been ten thousand times more severe. . . . We submit ourselves without reserve to Thy holy will, regardless whether Thou wouldst leave our souls here in these earthly tabernacles or whether Thou wouldst take them home unto Thyself. We have no fear because we belong to Christ, and therefore shall not perish. We even desire to depart from this weak body in the hope of a blessed resurrection, knowing that then it will be restored to us in a much more glorious form.” (Excerpt from a “Prayer for the sick and the spiritually distressed,” Psalter Hymnal [1976], 187.)

“We acknowledge that we have within ourselves nothing but evil inclinations and inability to do any good. On this account we have merited this affliction, yea, have deserved far more. . . . count not our sins against us, . . . give us patience and strength to bear it all according to Thy will; and may it thus in Thy wisdom redound to our edification. . . . . Rather chastise us here, Lord, than that we should have to perish with the world hereafter. Grant that we may die to this world and to all earthly things, that we may be renewed daily after the image of Jesus Christ. Suffer us never to be separated from Thy love . . . .” (Excerpt from a “Prayer for the sick and the spiritually distressed,” Psalter Hymnal [1976], 188.)

Or, in the words of the hymn: “Lord Jesus, for this I most humbly entreat; I wait, blessed Lord, at Thy crucified feet; By faith, for my cleansing, I see Thy blood flow; now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” (Psalter Hymnal [1976], number 379, st. 3)

*Part one, June 2007, this website.