My son and daughter-in-law and I stood on the water’s edge at the coast after dinner this week enjoying a video chat with my daughter and grandson in the mountains. He smiled as he recognized our voices and caught a glimpse of our faces. We watched as he pushed up onto hands and knees, ready to crawl. Five hours separated us and seeing him only made me want to hold him more!
No matter how badly a parent may want to be in two places at once, it’s physically impossible. I am constrained by the limitations of my body. Virtually or otherwise, I am just thankful to be included.
During His life on earth, Jesus was limited to one place and time in His humanity, but after His resurrection, He defied the laws of nature, appearing in locked rooms and disappearing from Emmaus, exhibiting the spiritual body promised to all who believe.
The apostle Paul describes the physical body as a seed when compared to the mature, resurrected, eternal plant. He reminds us that what we see is transient. An oak or a sunflower simply cannot be imagined from its seed. The reality is much for fantastic!
“When you plant something, it isn’t a completely grown plant that you put in the ground.
You only plant a seed.
Maybe it’s wheat or something else. But God gives the seed a body just as he has planned.
And to each kind of seed he gives its own body.
It will be like that with bodies that are raised from the dead.
The body that is planted does not last forever.
The body that is raised from the dead lasts forever.
It is planted as an earthly body. But it is raised as a spiritual body.
Just as there is an earthly body, there is also a spiritual body.”
1 Corinthians 15:37-38, 42, 44 NIRV
https://bible.com/bible/110/1co.15.37-44.NIRV
“Our natural bodies don’t last forever. They must be dressed with what does last forever. What dies must be dressed with what does not die.”
1 Corinthians 15:53 NIRV
https://bible.com/bible/110/1co.15.53.NIRV
This is only part the promise and hope for all who trust in the name of Jesus for eternal life. Jesus taught His first followers that when the time was right and the place was prepared, we would be with Him where He is forever. His eternal presence is the promise.
“For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.”
2 Corinthians 5:1 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2co.5.1.NLT
“God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 5:5 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2co.5.5.NLT
This is the same Spirit that Jesus promised to His first followers when He said He would not leave them alone as orphans. We are recipients of the very same Spirit that God exerted when He raised Jesus from the dead. This Holy Spirit is God with us, God alive in us, but the promise is not just for here and now. It is for all eternity.
“The Lord himself will come down from heaven.
We will hear a loud command.
We will hear the voice of the leader of the angels.
We will hear a blast from God’s trumpet.
Many who believe in Christ will have died already. They will rise first.
After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them.
We will be taken up in the clouds. We will meet the Lord in the air.
And we will be with him forever.
So encourage one another with these words of comfort.”
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 NIRV
https://bible.com/bible/110/1th.4.16-18.NIRV
Father God, who by the blood of Jesus we are encouraged to address as our “Abba,” our
“Daddy,” we, Your beloved children thank You for Your presence with us.
Though we cannot be present when and where we would choose on every occasion, You can, Holy Father.
Nothing is beyond Your sight.
No one is beyond Your reach.
All the hairs on our heads are numbered, such a changeable and trivial thing, yet each one is kept by our loving Father.
You delight in our attempts to move toward You. Every baby step in Your direction is met with Your praise.
When we stumble and are hurt, Your care and healing find us in the place of greatest need. One day, You will wipe every tear from our eyes.
Since we cannot look at this earthly body and see the spiritual reality that awaits, we will trust by faith that Your promises are true.
You are with us now by Your Spirit. Thank You, Holy Father, for the promise of Your presence with us for eternity.
Help us to walk today in that reality, confident in hope, that a watching world may see and know You.
In Jesus’s name.
Amen.
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