Easter is the promise of new life. We know it. That fact rolls off most Christians’ tongues easily, but what kind of new life are we talking about?

If your mind drifts to clouds and harps and ethereal visions of floating with the angels, you don’t understand the true hope of Easter. Easter is about resurrection, specifically resurrection of the body.

When Adam and Eve sinned, it created a rupture between human spirit and body. We’ve felt it ever since. We feel it most pronounced when someone dies. To see a human body laying still with no breath, no warmth, no spirit is a jarring sight. Why? Because instinctively we know that a body without a spirit isn’t what a human is.

But we also feel the rift between spirit and body when we experience temptations that pull us one way even though we want to live differently. “The spirit is willing but the body is weak!” We feel the division when we zone out while listening to someone we love, when we give our bodies for sex with someone who doesn’t even really know us, when we worship God one day and then don’t think about him the next. The spirit-body split is everywhere.

Sadly, it’s taken hold in our culture to such a degree that people now live as though it is just the way things are. Most notably, new gender ideology suggests that your body actually has zero to do with your gender. Who you really are is inside (spirit, perhaps?) and who you are on the outside is inconsequential or just clay for you to mold as you please.

I’m not writing to point fingers. I’m just describing what the rupture sin created has done to us.

But Jesus.

Jesus—God made flesh—died, experienced the rupture of spirit and body and then overcame it through His resurrection. The death He died He died for all of us that we might experience the resurrection of our bodies. In other words, that we might experience the full union of God’s Spirit and our bodies again!

We have the first fruits of that re-union already when we enter into life with Christ through faith. And one day we will experience the full re-union.

We’ll hardly be recognizable to each other. Or perhaps more accurately, when we see each other risen with restored bodies, we’ll hardly recognize who we are now. We’ll see one another and think, “This! This is who you were all along! This is the true you!”

I can’t wait.

So wherever you are today and in whatever way you continue to feel the schism in your own spirit and body, take hope in Jesus’ resurrection today. He is alive, having gone through death so that you would become alive with Him.

Praise God.

If we can help you on your journey toward becoming whole, please let us know. We love participating with the beautiful restoration Jesus does. And we’d love to help you know and see yourself more fully as you really are.

With you,

Josh