It is easy to forget that Christian theology is not merely the realm of academics; that it is necessarily balanced by the experience of the community. I have often heard our faith described as a dry collection of dictums that must be followed precisely if one is to both avoid condemnation from within, and be “considered” a true Christian. To my mind, this is either another form of legalism, or dualism where the activity of the intellect, the spirit, is given precedence over, and is deemed naturally “better” than the experience of the body.
During Lent many of us often endeavour to undertake some form of asceticism. Asceticism – naturally – involves the body, the experience of the body; and in this context that experience is closely linked to our personal search for wisdom and a better understanding of God, and his presence in our life. Theology necessarily includes the activity and experience of the body.
A quick survey of the biggest feasts of the liturgical year demonstrates the theological value of the body in our faith. The feast of the Nativity is our celebration of the Incarnation itself. In becoming the Incarnate One, the Logos demonstrates that our whole self, our “person” is composed of spiritual and material intimately woven together to form a whole cloth. The suggestion – which he later demonstrates at the Resurrection – is that in order for our salvation to be complete, the whole person must be saved, and not merely the spirit.
At Theophany we commemorate the institution of baptism, and the reconstitution of the entire created order – symbolised not just by Jesus’ own body, but ours as well; for as we have been baptised into Christ, we are baptised into his body, as well as the Will and Reason of God.
We are now approaching the feast of Pascha, the death and resurrection of Christ – in the flesh. The resurrection is an important point of reference for our theology; indeed it is our central point of reference. Here Christ completes the demonstration of the fullness of our salvation began at the Nativity. It is not just our soul that is saved – had it been so, there would have been no need for the Incarnation. We were created as whole persons, that wholeness, that . . . “personhood” is intimately bound up in our material, finite existence. Our bodies – constituent parts of our “person” must therefore be included in the mechanics of salvation. It is for this reason then that he became incarnate, suffered, and died.
Christ’s victory over Death was not just accomplished because of the overwhelming power of his divinity – Death (according to our traditional mythic imagery) is a powerful, primordial figure in his own right, cunning and strong, he would not have been so easily defeated hat it not been for the Divine Deception. Through the Incarnation, the Logos offers Death a treat he cannot possibly turn away, whole human-ness, the entirety of perfected humanity – the “price” demanded for our freedom. Our body then – Christ’s body – is the weapon of our liberation. Through it he reveals himself as God, overwhelms Death, liberates those held since the beginning, and returns with his own body (no-one ever enters Sheol and returns) as proof of his victory.
Through experience of the activity of, and encounter with the Incarnate One the first witnesses of our faith “knew” Christ as God. Today’s Gospel (Mk. 2.1-12) is but one example of this. The crowd, having witnessed Christ’s healing the paralytic, is “astounded and glorified God, saying ‘We have never seen anything like this’.” Through the body of the Paralytic and their encounter with the Logos Incarnate, the crowd came to “know” God. Theology is an incarnational experience, as much as it is the musings of the intellect.
It was St. Gregory of Palamas (1296-1359) who we commemorate today, that developed and defended this seemingly natural link between the experience of the Incarnation, our experience, and our ability to access, understand, and know God not exclusively through the workings of the intellect, but also through the experience of living our faith, and the spiritual disciplines, such as heschyia that we undertake.
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