This body
The one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus,
And bring us with you into his presence. 2 Corinthians 4:14
Read 2 Corinthians 4:7—12
This body of mine will soon be ready for its daily rest. It does not go on forever. It stops and restarts. It’s the only one I have, but I have to face the fact that it’s as disposable as a clay pot. Old archaeological digs are full of discarded clay pots, two-a-penny at the market, and old cemeteries are full of used bodies. The saints I most admire knew this. They did not hold onto their lives. They were ready to be expendable. They saw this in Jesus. He counted his own life as expendable. I hope I can learn this too, not heroically, but humbly and obediently. I hope my body can be ready for anything it is asked to go through. This is not because I am ungrateful for my body. Not because it is a poor creation. It’s quite exquisite, really. But it’s yet to be raised with Christ, still to be glorified. I am promised all this in Christ’s resurrection. The way to prepare for that is to be ready to die daily with Jesus, whatever it takes.
Dear Father, before me Jesus has gone on his way to suffering and death, then to his glory. Before me has gone Paul, looking down at his body, and calling it a clay pot, ready to put it through whatever it took to carry its precious message to the next town. Before me went the hymn writer:
Happy if with my latest breath
I might but gasp his name,
Preach him to all, and cry in death,
‘Behold, behold the Lamb.’ Charles Wesley
I cannot know what this body of mine will be asked to endure before I cry in death, but I pray that it will serve you as faithfully all its days, and die in hope and confidence.